Anaugust Gold
by ShiningMoon
Summary: Sequel to Red Window. After returning to her domain, Vejata realizes the consequence of the massive power difference between her and her people: apathy, and a dangerous desperation to escape her duties as Queen. But what is the cost of this desperation?
1. 01

NOTE: This story probably won't make much sense if you haven't read "Red Window." So, I would recommend going and checking that one out first.

All your comments are very much appreciated. I hope you guys enjoy this story!

By the way, "anaugust" is a word I made up, based of course on "an-" + "august." It's not a typo or anything. :)

...

The days had gone past painful. Boredom had struck first, her strength scaring away any but the most foolish and leaving not much else to do. Her absence had caused a ripple of disquiet—they had placed a different ruler while she was gone. But it took her only one demonstration for her subjects to believe that she was still the Queen.

They had been baffled—their violent deaths, their resurrection without explanation. She spoke not a word of it, and many attributed it to special knowledge or abilities she was granted as a Super Saiyajin.

The Saiyajin finally had their glorious warrior, the golden Queen, the smallest twist on the legends of old, but there was little celebration. They waited less with bated breath and more with bitten lips for an heir to emerge, or for her to die—or for her to lead them to where they had always meant to be, wherever that was. She was quiet, and did not broker planets, or blow planets up. She brooded.

...

There _had _to be a way to make them ascend, all of them—to bring her people back to prestige, the bar raised by the handful of Saiyajin on Earth. Until then, she was stuck watching over the anthill, and if her people were ever industrious, their feats were small.

She _needed_ someone. Someone to fight, someone to challenge her strength, for had she not learned more than she ever would have dreamed of from those she found on Earth, who challenged her? Could she teach two others to fuse? No—they could not manipulate their _ki_—nor, likely, would they ever learn.

_Weaklings._

But she had learned the trick to ascension, hadn't she? Rage, purest hopelessness, _some_ strong emotion. If there was a key, that was it.

So Queen Vegeta glowed gold at night, to let her people see just who was murdering their families, leveling their homes, destroying them. Would another glimmering star shoot from the rubble to sock her across the face?

Would she ever be able to find an heir, and escape?

...

Things could be for the next ruler just like they had been for her. If there was someone who could take over, someone just strong enough, she could leave—leave them to rule this godforsaken place, hovel of once-proud warriors left in the dust by their own kind, and if the heir she left behind her became strong enough, he could one day come and kill her.

Decades of fierce devotion to her people were wearing away quickly, more quickly than she ever would have predicted, eroded by that accursed gold. She had hoped to rule more proudly than ever, to inspire them to achieve what she had—but Prince Vegeta had been right: these elites were far too comfortable where they were, caught between the diamond-pressure strain of the throne and the chasm that had long ago been a humming heap of rough-and-tumble grunts.

For all the flak she'd have given that Kakarrot for sitting so low on the totem pole, at least he was a goddamn _Saiyajin_. And with this world, these Saiyajin still alive, still, that man was the last of his kind.

They'd never had a good fight. But she'd go to Hell and scrape out tooth and nail before she'd let things stay that way.

Still, it was best not to risk that now. She needed an heir, first.

But the Saiyajin got weaker and weaker.

Perhaps they were meant to die, after all.

...

"Kakarrot," Vegeta nudged him with his boot. The man stirred a little bit before his eyes fluttered open, and he mumbled something incoherent. "Surely you haven't been waiting for me for _that_ long?"

"Huh?" Goku sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He brought himself to his feet and began stretching. "Oh yeah, we were sparring here today, right?" Vegeta raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation. "I, ah...guess I just stayed the night here."

"Waiting for me?"

Goku shrugged. "Nothin' else to do. Plus, I like the outdoors." He took in a deep breath to demonstrate, and then turned back to Vegeta with a wide grin. "So, are you ready?"

"Not so fast," Vegeta raised one hand, eyes set squarely on Goku. "There's something I need to know—something you still haven't told me."

"Oh, well, I guess I stayed the night out here because—"

"That's not it," and Goku stopped, this time meeting Vegeta's eyes as the graveness of the prince's tone filtered through his ears. "You've been avoiding one question of mine."

"Like what?" he crossed his arms and pouted. "You know, I'm a pretty honest guy, Vegeta. Maybe you just haven't asked."

"Oh, I have," Vegeta seemed to rise from the ground as his bristling hairs rose from his neck, and he raised one knowing finger to Goku. "You and she both mentioned it—something that happened between you, that neither of you wants to tell me."

"She?"

"You know damn well who I'm talking about!"

Of course he did. But he'd been trying not to think about Vejata—about the adventures he could be having on New Vegeta this very moment. After all, she'd told him to wait a while. She was probably homesick and just needed some time to herself, and he could respect that—could wait a bit before visiting to see if there were any other strong Saiyajin, or maybe if he could train any others to become worthy rivals. At the very least, he mused, smiling, maybe Vejata would come back around sometime and spar him. Maybe she and Vegeta could fuse into that Vegeta he had seen months ago, who had finished the job that he could not.

"Kakarrot!"

The smile flickered from his face. "Oh, yeah. Um, what about her?"

"What _happened_?" his lips stretched aside to reveal teeth. If he hadn't cared much before, he cared now simply because of Goku's continued refusals to answer. What _was _it? The man had said it himself: he was a "pretty honest guy." So why on _Earth_ did he repeatedly dismiss Vegeta's question, rather than outright answering it?

"I dunno, it's kind of hard to explain," Goku fumbled with his gi sash, suddenly concerned with making sure the knot was perfectly tied. He moved on to readjust his wristbands. "Um, that is, it's not really a big deal because it was a misunderstanding anyway."

"What _kind_ of a misunderstanding, pray tell?" Vegeta spoke through clenched teeth. He knew that whatever this was involved him, somehow—had he ever known how, had anyone let it slip? He'd forgotten in the months he'd spent trying to squeeze the answer from Goku.

"Like, well, it wasn't really between _us,_ Vejata and I, 'cause, I thought she was someone else."

A soft growl echoed in Vegeta's throat. "Me."

"W-well..."

"Oh, don't even _pretend _to play that game, Kakarrot. You could not possibly mistake a goddamn _clone _of me for anyone _but_ me." He squared his shoulders, but at his sides his fists balled nervously.

"Yeah, I thought she was you," Goku admitted. "I was kinda...half-asleep. Y'know?"

His fingers twitched out of the fist formation, stretching restlessly, and for a brief moment a ball of _ki_ lit up between them, a warning. "And what did you _do_ while you were 'kinda half-asleep'?"

"I didn't do anything!" and now Goku's brows knit as he eyeballed where the blast had lit up, and he began to turn away, perhaps to leave. "And don't be so low—don't you threaten me like that."

"_I didn't do anything_," Vegeta mocked through still-clamped jaws, and stepped forward to round off Goku's step, leaning in close. "Now tell me."

"It wasn't that big a deal!" and Goku seemed to blush through his anger. "I almost...but..."

Vegeta brought his face closer so that Goku could hear him hiss: "You almost what?"

"Dammit, Vegeta!" Goku seized his shoulders and closed distance between them, pressing their mouths together. "_That!_" and at the flash of confusion over the prince's face, he added with a snarl, "I fucking _almost kissed her_, okay?"

Vegeta stumbled back, eyes wide. "B-because...you thought she was me...?"

"Yes!" and his ire fell quickly to apology. "There. Now you know. Do you feel better?"

"You...w-wanted to..." Vegeta glanced the man over. "You want _me_?"

"I don't know!" he looked away. "Maybe. I don't know."

"Well," Vegeta stepped closer, and he could nearly hear the blood as it pumped furiously through Goku's body. "I _do_ know." He leaned in close before pulling back to strike Goku across the face. "Don't you _ever _dishonor me like that again. You are my _rival_. You are lucky I even converse with you, let alone pleasantly."

Goku blinked and brought one hand to his cheek, where Vegeta had hit him. He hadn't been sure if Vegeta still considered them rivals—since Buu, the prince had seemed to calm down and had eased into a more peaceful routine. But these days, he had been prone to snapping at anything that seemed to challenge his prowess—fighting or otherwise. He opened his mouth to speak—to tell him _no,_ don't worry, he wouldn't do anything about it, wouldn't act on it, wouldn't...

"I don't want to see your sorry ass until you've kicked some sense into yourself," he narrowed his eyes. "Banish those foolish dreams that you could ever have that kind of power over—that you could ever _deserve_ me."

"You don't..."

"I can't spar with you, Kakarrot. Not now," he touched his mouth, and then, cringing, spat.

"C-can I...come over and talk to you about it tomorrow?"

"Give me a while," he growled, and sent one last warning glare before he took to the skies. Goku collapsed to his haunches. He was sure Bulma would find out about what he'd done—if there was anyone to whom Vegeta could divulge such apparently _humiliating_ information, it was her. Would she then go and tell his wife? He rested his head against his hand as he wondered what it was going to be like, with no Vegeta to turn to in this time of personal turmoil—no Bulma (for why would she ever support the notion of someone stealing away her beloved?)—the only two with whom he may ever have entrusted his feelings. And here he was, burdened with this confusing sentiment that, it seemed, was far beyond unrequited—it was despised. His gut twisted as he realized that he had nowhere to leave it. He would just have to carry it with him, until it left of its own volition, or did whatever such feelings did when they had nowhere to go. He was stranded, and worse—

Trapped.

He watched as Vegeta disappeared into the morning sky, and knew that he had to get away for a while, distract himself with some exciting quest or journey. His eye glimmered as it focused on a point higher in the sky. _Has it been "a while" yet?_


	2. 02

NOTE: Sorry (to anyone who might actually be reading this XD) for taking longer than I usually do with this chapter. I know the story is starting slow, too, at least compared to Red Window - but things are gonna get crazy soon and I can only hope you'll forgive me...! And since I'm writing this note anyway, I may as well remind you that your comments are always (_always_) appreciated. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I find out someone's actually reading this stuff...and also helps motivate me to write more. Which is handy.

...

As Goku lowered his forefingers from his brow, he soaked in his surroundings. The slight increase in gravity tugged him down like a gentle breeze to Earth's calm air, but then, he knew that the fact that he had noticed the change at all meant it couldn't have been too insignificant.

Haphazard teleportations to Vegeta's immediate vicinity before thinking about the prince's surroundings had resulted in enough awkward situations that he'd known better than to place himself too close to Vejata—just in case. As he stretched his senses out to locate her beacon, Goku observed the landscape with interest. Two suns hung nearly below the horizon, leaving the sky dim, and he searched his mind to try to remember whether he had noticed that the planet would have danced with both stars when it had been but debris. As he shuffled his feet, thick, bristly brush rustled beneath them, and he reached down to pluck some and observe it—a deep charred gray, and as he turned it over in his hands it pricked him. Jumping a little, Goku dropped it, and as he raised his finger to his mouth to lick away the blood, something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He whipped around to face it and found smoke billowing from a stout structure. Grating sirens rang through his ears and they registered as dimly familiar. Searching for why, Goku shook the remaining haze of emotional turmoil from his mind and took a few steps forward—and after a moment more, he realized that the sirens were the combined screams and shouts of a handful of Saiyajin.

Goku reached the building just in time to see a flicker of gold disappear, and his eyes snapped to its source. Vejata's gaze locked with his and she froze. A small cluster of Saiyajin—the sirens Goku had heard—charged at her in her lapse in awareness and blocked her view to the man. She tore each away systematically, throwing them against the burning building as she did so. They slumped against the wall, unconscious, and Goku wondered vaguely if this blazing building could be their home.

When she didn't meet eyes with him again, Goku gave one more glance toward the pile of unconscious Saiyajin and seemed to realize something. He leapt over to them and scooped them up in his arms. "Why would you do that?" he muttered, hoping that she would hear him over the crackling of the flames as they licked up the innards of the building. "They could've gotten burned real bad...or worse," he nodded toward the fire even though she still wasn't looking, his voice shaky. She'd seemed better...like she'd gotten better. What was this? Was this how she always treated her subjects?

When her only response seemed to be the sound of a subtle curling and uncurling of her toes through her boots, scraping through gravel and scrubby moss beneath the ash, Goku took in a few deep breaths to regain his composure as he made his way away from the building, looking for a place to deposit the bodies he held. "You started that fire, too...didn't you?"

Strange sounds seemed to rumble through her throat before she finally answered, "Blame yourself."

Goku nearly tripped, one unconscious Saiyajin falling from the pile in his arms and smacking the ground with an undignified _thud_. He set the rest down beside it before he spoke. "Wh...whaddaya mean?"

"What else am I to do? My people are weak," she continued, and her eyes narrowed as she fixed her gaze against the pile of unconscious Saiyajin.

"B-but...blame myself? I don't..."

"Yes, you heard me. Blame yourself," her voice grew louder, although she still avoided meeting his gaze. "Weren't you the one who taught me that trick, that goddamn glorious gold?" each word seemed to tremble from her mouth, as if she might transform at that moment. "This is nothing but a dead end," and again she motioned toward the unconscious Saiyajin. "They need to become stronger."

"N-no way..." Goku's eyes widened in realization. "Don't tell me..."

"Rage, right?" her sharp eyes finally snapped against Goku's as her words echoed ever louder around her. "Hopelessness? Desperation? Any of those?"

"I..."

Her voice dropped to a deadly quiet. "It hasn't worked yet."

"You can't do that..." Goku protested in a whisper. "It doesn't...it doesn't work like that..." He strode up to the queen until he was standing nearly toe-to-toe with her, and his gaze bored down into her. "Surely you haven't been...I mean...not like..." he felt his chest tug in pity, and he couldn't tell if it was for the people or for her. He followed its forward pulling for a moment, extending his hand as if to lay it against her shoulder, but seemed to think better of it and let his arm fall to his side. "Right?"

The corner of Vejata's mouth twitched. "Haven't been what?" she growled. "Certainly precious Prince Vegeta killed as a means to his own selfish ends, too."

"K-killed?" Goku stammered. "I never said..." his eyes glanced around wildly at the scenery that surrounded him: other structures like this one in similar disrepair, or worse. "But...Vejata," he started with firm resolve, "You—"

"Never mind," she stopped him before he launched into the lecture that seemed to be waiting to spill from his lips. "Why are you here, Kakarotto? I told you to wait a while," she spat bitterly.

"Good thing I didn't," he murmured, and she held her eyes against him in wait for a response even as he flushed and turned away. "I, well..." his boot scraped through the ash several times, and he clutched at his forearm as if he'd find a wound there. "It's just," he glanced sheepishly back toward Vejata, and then turned to face her. She watched restlessly as his nostrils flared several times in succession, taking in some scent. "Nothing, really..."

"Like hell it's nothing," her voice dropped deeper and quieter as her lips pulled away from her teeth in a threat. Her grimace faltered when she noticed a glimmer of shock in Goku's eyes.

The man swallowed and bit his lip. "Vegeta."

For a moment, she was sure he was addressing her—but no, for her he always used that stupid altered name. Disconcerted at this realization, she took a step back and her voice quivered. "Give yourself a tour," she turned away. "Come find me when you've swept up that clusterfuck of emotions I see you've yet to take care of."

Goku nodded slowly even as she disappeared, and fixed his gaze on the sky again. "I sure screwed things up, didn't I, Vegeta?"

...

"Okay, Vegeta," Bulma crossed her arms. "I know that look, so just 'fess up." When she received no response, she continued, "You and Goku have never had a twenty-minute sparring session, and you sure as hell have never come back completely unscathed."

The prince temporarily paused his vicious removal of any edibles from the pantry to glance at the woman. "What look?" he responded simply, as if he hadn't heard the rest of her statement.

"Oh, I dunno," Bulma glanced toward the ceiling, "how do I describe it?" she asked rhetorically before she resumed her demanding glare, "Something like, 'There's clearly something bothering me, but if I act pissed enough, no one will notice.' _That_ look."

"Don't be stupid," Vegeta growled into the pantry. "I _am _pissed. Fuck off."

"You don't eat like this when you're angry," Bulma ignored his demand, placing boxes back into the cabinets. It took Vegeta a few moments to notice that she was still there, and—yes—unraveling his progress. He prepared to down the box of crisps he held as he held his eyes on her. "You train like crazy and pick fights with me when you're angry. Now," she continued, "you do, shall we say, _snack voraciously_," she started, and Vegeta unapologetically left the box poised near his lips, "when something is," she snickered a bit to herself, "well, _eating you_."

"Same damn thing," Vegeta returned his attention to the box, but Bulma took it from him before he could pour its contents down his throat. "Can't a Saiyajin have a snack around here?" he snarled, glaring at Bulma. She stood in his immediate vicinity with her arms crossed, one hand still holding the box. "What?" he snapped, and she continued to stare. After what could have been an entire minute, she raised an eyebrow, and Vegeta seemed to falter at this. "Fine," he shifted his weight. "I'm more than just pissed."

"I thought so," she smirked, head held high, and he groaned at her understatement. "So tell me about it."

...

Goku did as Vejata had advised, and began meandering through the area. Perhaps he would have to make this into the exciting adventure he'd come for—something fun, far removed from what awaited him when he returned to Earth. He stepped cautiously through some village or city and found that none of its inhabitants seemed to take notice of him, save perhaps for his strange style of dress. Goku received a few scrutinizing looks as he passed by a cluster of squabbling Saiyajin—were they trying to figure out why he wore those clothes, or could they tell his class by his hair? Two women stood atop adjacent houses screaming at one another, until the one nearest him leapt across the gap to take a swing at the other. In return, she received a _ki_ blast to the gut. _They must each be as strong as Nappa was_, Goku mused as their battle continued.

His heart pounded with excitement when each inhabitant he passed had the muscle tone that indicated regular training, had eyes that glimmered constantly with fiery-spiritedness and readiness to fight. _It would sure be cool if more of these people could get stronger_, he decided, and then stopped in his tracks. _But...no way I'd try to do it like Vejata. I'd find a better way._

He felt a little more at home here, in some ways—no strange floating cars, only people who could fly themselves. At that thought, he smiled and walked with swagger. _Hey, I know! _A grin spread over his face. _I should meet one of 'em. Yeah. _ "Hey!" he called out to one of the Saiyajin.

The young man froze in his tracks and then seemed to turn around as slowly as he could manage. "Yes, fa—oh," his eyes lit up ever so slightly as he realized that this man was unfamiliar to him. Looking Goku over, he frowned. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"My name's Son Goku," his grin persisted.

The young Saiyajin crossed his arms. "Ugh, what dumbass parents gave you that name? Hey—" he shrugged toward Goku, "what're you trying to pull, walking around in those baggy clothes? You've got no excuse—you clearly haven't been off-planet recently."

Goku scratched his head. "Wha—why not?"

The young man grimaced. "What are you, some kinda hick? You _do_ know that interplanetary travel's been banned since, oh, I don't know," he rolled his eyes, "about five sunsets ago?"

"Um," Goku blinked, throwing his hands out to the side in surrender. "No, I didn't. Why?"

"Hell if anyone knows," he grumbled. "My father's got a few theories."

"Yeah?"

"It all comes down to Queen Vegeta being fucked up in the head though," he shrugged, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Scary bitch she is. Being a Super Saiyajin must mess with your mind."

"Dunno," Goku shrugged, casually powering up until he glowed gold. "I'm pretty okay, right?"

The boy's eyes widened, and after several twitches of his lips as he tried to speak, he turned and ran. Goku frowned and let his power drop, but before he did so he noticed that everyone else on the street had either struck a defensive pose or taken to hiding around corners of buildings. He laughed guiltily, and, under their nervous gazes, took to the sky.

...

"And he _what_?" Bulma blinked. Vegeta caught her glass of water before it cracked against the ground.

"You heard me—that...moron..._kissed me_," he hissed the last words and seemed to bristle at the thought.

"I guess..." she tried to compose herself, grabbing the water back from Vegeta's grip and taking a swig before smacking it down onto a coaster beside her. "I guess that makes sense," she resolved as she took a seat at the table.

"It..._what_?" his eyes widened.

"I mean, he's like a puppy dog around you...following you around all the time, spending all that time with you," Bulma seemed a bit bitter as she finished. "Still..." she frowned. "How weird. I can't believe he'd actually _do _that to you." At Vegeta's silence, she threw her arms into the air. "It's _Goku_, for crying out loud!"

"I felt his _ki_ disappear after he left," Vegeta spoke after a few moments, and moved closer to sit across from Bulma. As he pulled the chair out to make room for himself, the wood splintered slightly beneath his agitated fist.

"Well," Bulma sighed, "I can't imagine you let the poor guy down easy. Probably just blowing off steam somewhere else."

"He'd better come back with his senses about him," Vegeta grumbled, scooting closer to the table and absently nudging the salt shaker until it clattered against the pepper shaker. "He obviously just wasn't thinking clearly." The salt shaker tumbled over, spilling its contents onto the table, and then, as it rolled away, the floor.

Bulma tipped the rest of the water from her glass into her mouth. "Hope so."


	3. 03

Vejata swung a short series of punches through the air before ducking to sweep her foot in an arc just above the ground. "Shit," she growled, dropping the rest of the way down to the floor and settling into a workout of aggressive pushups. Why, _why _was he here? Now?

He'd been antsy about the topic—she was sure Prince Vegeta had been the cause of his distress, for she'd smelled something pent-up in him, and then, worse, he'd started sniffing at _her. _At this thought her mind surrendered itself to recollections of days she'd invested good time and effort in trying to forget—or at least push away until she could sneer at her own foolishness from afar. She shivered, recalling the sight of his spikes of hair multiplying into a golden mane, his feral Saiyajin grin as they had sparred, and quickly shook herself from the daze, flipping over and curling into her sit-up routine.

And he had to show up _now_—now, before she'd completed the task of bringing her people to new heights of glory, and as she searched still for someone, _anyone_ but her to rule the planet well enough, or, better yet, anyone who could even hope to spawn offspring—her own blood—worthy of being called her heir, anyone—

She froze as her stomach seized, and she knew it wasn't just because of the sit-ups. Images flashed through her mind—his pain and longing, his nostrils flaring, his large eyes when she'd lowered her voice at him—

Her blood pounded viciously and her mind reeled as she quivered under the weight of it. A sly grin crept across her features. She knew what to do.

...

Goku soared over the villages, and as he found each had buildings in just as bad a state as the one Vejata had left, his frown deepened. He bit his lip, trying to decide if he had really been the cause of all this as she had claimed. Surely she would have found Super Saiyajin without her help—right? Vegeta had.

_Vegeta_.

He nearly dropped from the air as guilty thoughts jerked him violently back—back to what he'd left behind him on Earth when he'd disappeared without even telling anyone where he was going. Vegeta would guess—he knew it—but would he change his mind, come find him?

Exhaling slowly, Goku realized that he was almost as trapped here on this faraway planet as he had been on Earth—after all, would it even be possible to bring himself to go back before something had changed between him and Vegeta—either on his end or the prince's? He knew that the strange way his stomach squirmed sometimes when he was around Vegeta could be ignored most of the time, maybe, if he tried hard enough, and maybe he would have been better off not saying a thing to Vegeta, just keeping his mouth shut as he had been.

But as he'd said not so long ago to the prince himself, he was an honest guy—and if Vegeta had wanted so much to know what that tiny little twinkle of feeling had been, Goku couldn't just _not_ tell him. He himself was still baffled by it, why he'd come to feel these weird things about Vegeta, and when, and _how_...but dwelling on that wouldn't help fix the problem now. Goku knew by the gnawing and chewing that had started in his chest but was quickly eating its way through to the base of his gut that the chances he could dismiss it altogether now were slim, and getting worse. He had to do _something_...

Vejata had said not to come back to her until he'd figured things out. But what was there yet to decide, really? There was only what _was_ and that was the tingling of his curiosity about Vegeta, simultaneously amplified and drowned by the prince's rejection and hurtful words. _He didn't mean what he said, though_, Goku reminded himself. _He's not always all nice to people...he...didn't mean the stuff he said to me._

_ But what if he did?_

...

Vejata's ears told her of his arrival only moments before the tiny scouter Bulma had given her, set in her eye like a contact lens—and then she felt it herself, the _ki_ that had just appeared outside the door. She was no master yet—but this one was easy to identify. Her mouth twisted into a smirk, which she forced away as she passed through the hall to answer the door, her cape flowing behind her as a blood-red curtain in the breeze generated by her movement. With a sweeping gesture she swung the wide door open.

"H-hey," Goku's forced smile told her immediately that he had not done as she'd asked when she'd last seen him.

"Kakarrot," she growled, her voice carefully neutral. "So soon?"

He shifted his weight, apparently not attempting in the least to hide his discomfort with his situation. "I wanted to talk about it," he admitted, and as Vejata spun on her heel and tread back through the hall, he trailed after her. She turned suddenly at one doorway and entered, and Goku paused just outside it. "V-Vejata?"

"Please, don't make me tell you again," she spoke evenly, back still facing the man. "My name is _Vegeta_," the last word she breathed through a velvety voice and proceeded farther into the room.

Goku took it upon himself to enter take a seat—the room was some sort of small, personal living or dining area, no bigger than the one in his own modest home. Across the room was a short hallway holding a series of other doors, and if he had to guess, they were meant to hold something valuable; the doors were like all the others he'd seen in the building, except for some strange buzzing emanating from them that he'd heard before at the Capsule Corporation compound wherever Bulma kept something big and important. Vejata's eyes narrowed and her fingers twitched anxiously when she noticed his interest in the hallway. "Right, um," he seemed to remember the last thing she'd said. "But, Vejata, I don't call you that. Just like you don't call me Son Goku."

"Your prince doesn't call you by that name," and Goku winced at the phrasing. "And nor shall I." She turned suddenly to face him. "Kakarotto, are you not proud to be a Saiyajin?"

The man shrugged, and a stretch of silence passed as Vejata turned away briefly to remove the small scouter from her eye. Goku fidgeted and grabbed at one of the pillows from the cushioned seat on which he'd placed himself. He took to inspecting it with care, picking at some of the stitching, and his mouth moved as if he was muttering something under his breath. Vejata noticed this, but couldn't make out the words, if he was saying anything at all. "Whispering to pillows?" she sneered, laughing to herself. "Been doing a lot of that lately?"

Goku's eyes widened in shock. "N-no...why would I?"

She strode to the other side of the small room. "Always by your head at night," Vejata's voice was a quiet suggestion. "Always close, to hear the words you'd say to someone else." She stepped closer to Goku. "What's on your mind, Kakarrot?"

"I...I think you know," he murmured, dropping the pillow guiltily. "Otherwise you wouldn't say that...that stuff." After a few moments, he raised his head with resolve, locking eyes with her. "It's just that I can't do anything about it!" he threw his arms up in frustration. "I dunno if Vegeta will ever even give me a chance to tell him what I meant...or anything else," he paused, raising his eyebrows, "do you?"

"No," she responded tersely, "he won't."

"Wha—you weren't even there!" Goku protested, squirming in his seat. "You didn't hear..."

"_Dammit_, Kakarrot, listen to me or don't!" Vejata stomped one foot down forcefully, gritting her teeth. She seemed to realize the expression she was wearing, for her irate demeanor quickly recovered to a calmer one. She took a seat in a chair near him. "You showed up here, like this, and that's all I need to know about what he said to you."

"I...I hope you're wrong," he decided, finishing the statement with resolve. "Otherwise," and his confidence fell again, "I just don't know how to fix it. I hoped...you'd have an idea..."

"Ah," he could feel from the small distance between them that her heart rate had shot up, and hoped that this was a sign she did have one. He grinned when she answered a carefully measured, "I may."

With bright eyes, words fluttered quickly from his mouth. "How can I make it better? I don't really care, y'know, I mean, I do, but I wanna be friends with Vegeta so if I've gotta I can forget about it," he breathed and the words came slower, less hopeful, "only I dunno if he'd ever believe I did, and I dunno if I can really forget...y'know?"

"How do you know that's what you want?" she leaned in closer, speaking in a near whisper.

Goku felt her eyes boring into him and leaned in as well, though his gaze was focused on his fingers, weaving and unweaving nervously. "I just feel this _way_," he tried to explain, his speech equally quiet. He grabbed at his stomach. "It's a lot like the feeling when I eat a hot meal...it sorta starts out hot in my chest, and then my belly's hot, and then it's like it keeps on going down," he paused, and Vejata nodded, waiting, "I, I don't normally feel like that when I'm not eating. And...and I figured out what it was, I guess, when I remembered that sometimes I got that same feeling," his voice grew quieter and his ears were bright red, "y'know, with Chi-Chi. B-but..." he shook his head, "That prob'ly sounds really weird, doesn't it?"

"Certainly not unheard-of," she breathed. "As I told your friend Bulma, many Saiyajin feel inclined to take multiple partners." Goku opened his mouth, but she continued, "It is," he seemed taken aback by her suddenly heady tone, "merely your natural state shining through."

"M-my...natural..." Goku mused on this for a while before he hung his head. "Then Vegeta didn't just turn me down because he already has Bulma," he seemed to realize. "He...he flat-out doesn't like me!" his voice was panicked as the momentum of the cogs in his mind bulldozed any other possibility. "He _meant _those awful things he said!" and Goku clutched at his hair, words shaky. "What if he never takes them back—what if he never ever wants to see me again 'cause he thinks I'll..." he paused, hiccupping as he felt control slip away from him. "I screwed up so bad..." Burying his head in his hands, he muttered, "He's one of my best friends—I should have thought first...I didn't have to do anything, or even say anything—I mean, _why_ did I, it's Vegeta, he's...I hardly..." his wild eyes searched Vejata's, finishing weakly, "y'know?"

"Kakarotto," her eyes narrowed, and in its quietness her voice deepened enough to give Goku shivers. As she leaned forward even closer, his eyes jumped to the white gloves she wore, and the medallion he'd seen on Vegeta just after Vejata had first appeared on Earth, swinging low enough in her hunched position and close enough in their nearness that it brushed his knees. "I, too," she continued in the same tone, "am Vegeta."

He seemed to consider this for a moment before realizing just what she had said, and gasped audibly. "What are you—" as his head snapped up he came within inches of her face and he immediately let his chin drop back to his chest, avoiding her gaze.

"Prince Vegeta—when you first met him," she started, settling into the lower octave she'd taken up. "Why, he can't have been much younger than I am now."

"I..."

"You must have had quite the fight," Vejata continued, and Goku nodded slowly. "Did you know?" she curled and uncurled her fingers, "I haven't had a single good fight since I came back here?" A wildness came over her eyes. "Not a one; no one has challenged me," and she finished quietly, almost only mouthing the words, "since you."

Goku nodded again, the rumbling voice and the words it spoke gently rousing him enough from his misery that he took the time to smile apologetically—but when his eyes met hers, he found his mind swimming in foggy confusion. Since the last time he'd looked up, perhaps a minute ago, she'd removed the armor shell of her outfit, and the remaining clothing bore an undeniable resemblance to Vegeta's usual training garb. It was only as he noted the subtly more pronounced curves of her waist and chest that Goku became sure this was not the prince himself. "Look, Vejata..."

"Vegeta," she corrected, urging him.

He swallowed to moisten his dry throat. "Vegeta, I..." he paused, and his eyes widened as he seemed to finally snag the line she'd cast; he'd made his realization. His voice seemed to grow softer, more desperate, and his eyes were distant as they met hers. "_Vegeta_..."

"That's right," her words echoed through him soothingly, and she leaned in until their noses nearly touched. "That's right Kakarotto," she assured him huskily, "I am Vegeta."

"P-Pr...P..." Goku stammered, reaching out for her as if dizzy, and she guided his hand away from her chest and around to her back.

"That's right," her quiet growls seemed to lull him, for he gripped her closer and buried his nose in her hair as she spoke, "That's right, Kakarotto—Prince Vegeta."

"I...I want..." he started, and she pressed a gloved finger to his lips.

"Good," her teeth gleamed, and she tilted her head back. "Then take."

...

NOTE: Your reaction is normal; don't worry. Feel free to hate her; you are supposed to. XD I do want to assure you that this is not going to turn out as bad as you probably think it is. Or at least, not in the same way you think it is... (Please forgive me! I feel bad for having done it but...I hope you see why.)


	4. 04

She stirred slightly, eyes flicking open for only a moment before she pressed them shut again. Her head was aching to tell her something, but Vejata pressed back its urgent call, for her mind was surely swirling still from distant visions while she slept. Even in this state, she knew such lapses were dangerous—but—she'd recover with just a moment's more rest. Besides, her sleeping area was the most secure in the castle—on the planet, even, and for these reasons.

Shifting a bit, Vejata noted with displeasure the way the seams of the furniture beneath her had dug into her skin. _Wait_. She could feel all her skin on itself—she was wearing nothing. Eyes still closed, she brought one hand to her face to rub at them, but when she caught the scent of her hand, her body straightened, rigid in alarm. Her heel slammed against something—the bedpost? No, it was softer...it was...

Her eyes snapped open. _Kakarrot_.

Bursts of her most recent hours of consciousness flooded her mind, dangerously blurry. Past fumbling and confusion and—what was it, about her voice? And the tail, she'd had to keep it hidden somehow, but even when he found it...

Her muscles ached; some in dull pain, others sharply. What had—what was— _Then...it happened. _It had worked—something had worked—_gods!_—that was it. Vejata's hand snapped to just below her belly and her chest swelled with hope. _If it really did work—_her eyes widened, mad, as she smirked—_the child would be a pastime, of course—but most importantly, when he can fend for himself—if I can wait that long—I will leave these godforsaken people to their godforsaken planet...my duty will be done._

Worries itched at her, but as she tried to grasp them they made little sense, were hardly relevant to this victory. A quiet mumbling from behind her tore them away from them, anyway, and her thoughts were dragged back to the man who lay not far from her, his breathing shallow and his feet dangled over the edge of the furniture. He was strong, to be sure—she twisted to lie on her back and winced at the sharp pain—he had been the only real option, and she'd known it all along. What would he have been like if he had not damaged his brain and lost his Saiyajin memory, so long ago? Vejata smirked to herself. He would not have been so shaken by something like the prince's rejection, of course—would not have succumbed to her trickery so easily, either, she was certain. With amusement, she recalled that the only time he had faltered during her deception—really faltered, truly questioned _what_ was happening, those hours ago—throughout the _entire_ act—was when she'd failed to ascend to the second level as he'd expected of Vegeta. Her smirk widened. And what _ever_ would the prince think if he found out—

Her heart seemed to pause for a moment before doubling its efforts.

_Kakarrot can teleport._

_He can teleport away and tell everyone he knows._

And unless she could stop them from finding out, she was a dead woman. He had boasted that he stood among the gods—would they intervene, if they knew? She would have to risk it. Vejata could hardly hear over the blood that pounded through her ears, but quietly as she could she turned onto her side to face Goku. _What a shame_, she mused, and with all the dexterity she could muster climbed over the man, taking care to keep her thighs from brushing against his chest as she positioned her hands on the sides of his head. At the contact, the man's eyes fluttered open and he greeted her with a sleepy smile. "Ve..."

The syllable hung in the air alongside the gruesome crack of bones, and she pulled her hands from his twisted and broken neck. She pushed away, bare feet padding against the floor as she stepped back, and turned to reach for her shirt.

...

Vegeta settled into the couch silently next to his son.

"Dad?" the boy glanced up from his schoolwork, and Vegeta noticed with a small smirk that his notes were littered with what appeared to be sketches of attacks he was planning on developing. Since he'd first fused with Goten several years ago, Trunks had developed an obsession with creating new techniques, both for use with Goten and against him. Vegeta was pleased to see his son's interest in fighting interfering with his academics to a healthy extent, for a boy of Saiyajin heritage. "Dad?" Trunks waved a hand in front of his father.

"What is it, boy?" he grumbled, hoping too much approval hadn't leaked into his expression.

"I was gonna ask you," he frowned. "What's with you?" Vegeta shrugged, and Trunks considered mentioning his own theory when his father didn't answer. Instead, he took the indirect route. "Son's been gone for a while, hasn't he?"

The prince blinked a few times in surprise at hearing Trunks refer to the man using this name. He'd always been "Goten's dad"...well, for the three or so years since he'd come back, at least. _Kid must've picked it up from Bulma,_ Vegeta decided. _When did that happen?_

"Dad?"

"A while, yes," Vegeta agreed. It had been a month—no, almost two—and after a week or two of expecting the man to come back any day, the prince had resigned himself to the idea that Goku might be gone for longer than anyone had thought. He was sure the other Saiyajin had gone to visit New Vegeta—had been itching to go back for a while, and he supposed this was the perfect excuse. Vegeta had let Bulma in on this idea, and he was sure it had made its way back to the Son family since, along with the cause for Goku's absence. The man's wife had visited on multiple occasions, and Vegeta wasn't sure if she hated her husband more for leaving again, or him for being the apparent cause of Goku's leaving (each time she brought it up, with a sneer Vegeta mentioned that she'd be equally miserable if he'd been inclined to take the man up on his offer). He himself couldn't sense Goku on that planet, but it was too distant for him to expect to be able to. He wasn't even sure of its direction from Earth.

"Are you angry?" Trunks fiddled with his pencil, holding his eyes on his father.

"What?" he snapped out of thought.

"About what he did," he clarified, and half heartedly scribbled some numbers onto a sheet of paper. When silence ensued, Trunks glanced up to find his father staring at him with wide, alarmed eyes. "What? How could I _not _have heard?" he set his pencil down and locked eyes with his father. "Besides, Son wouldn't just up and leave from you being mean to him. He left 'cause you turned him _down_," he watched his father's eye twitch slightly, "and you did that 'cause he _kissed_ you." Vegeta nodded blankly. "So, are you angry about it?"

Vegeta's brows knit as he clenched his teeth, apparently replaying the memory. "_Angry _would be an understatement," he started, balled fists quivering.. "That he would be so presumptuous as to..." Vegeta trailed off. When Trunks seemed baffled by this response, the prince growled out, "You wouldn't understand, of course."

Trunks' lip curled up in displeasure at this response. "I'm not stupid." When his father seemed to drift off in thought again, Trunks added, "But at least he's better than a _girl_," and his features pinched up as he stuck his tongue out.

"What?" Vegeta blinked.

"Girls are gross," he shivered, apparently trying not to think about it. "And weird."

Vegeta chortled. "Your mother included?"

"She doesn't count."

The prince leaned back, a faint smirk playing across his features. "Of course."

Trunks nodded and resumed his work before he remembered the purpose of his original line of questioning. Surely enough, the next time he looked up his father seemed to have retired back into himself, deep in thought. "Dad, does it bother you that he's been gone this long?"

"No," he growled. What would happen when Goku came back, anyway? Would he be different—better, fixed, rid of his ridiculous ambitions? Would he continue to pursue them, or perhaps return more reserved, more wrapped up in himself? Vegeta rapped his fingers against the arm of the couch. _If Kakarrot comes back any different than he's always been..._ In his mind the words were a threat, but wasn't sure what he would do if this was indeed the case. Perhaps it would depend on how long the man was gone—but after this much time, it was tough to guess how long that would be.

"It has been quite a while though," Trunks began, and Vegeta glanced up to him with a questioning gaze—had his son heard his thoughts? "I mean, a while since he's been gone for a big long stretch of time." Vegeta dipped his chin down to his chest. Trunks remembered well seeing his father in this mood—these were of his first memories. As he'd gotten older, and started showing promise as a warrior, his father had resumed training again, bringing him along and teaching him about fighting, about _ki_, about everything he knew. But there were still those distant thoughts from the youngest he could ever remember being, of a time when the grating screech of the door to the gravity room was not a daily occurrence.

And now, his father was returning to that state. He could see that Vegeta had caught his hint—was glaring at him defensively in an attempt to hide the guilty bobbing of his adam's apple. "But Dad," Trunks spoke again, "I'm sure he'll come back. Y'know? That was...that was different. Right?"

Vegeta nodded, swallowing again.

"Hey," the boy leapt up, catching his homework as it toppled from his lap. "I'm gonna go train." When Vegeta nodded mutely and didn't move, Trunks crossed his arms. "Dad!"

"What?"

"Teach me how to do your Big Bang attack." He grinned as his father stood, adjusted his gloves, and headed toward the door.

"Let's to find some empty space," Vegeta suggested, and smirked at his son's excitement. "Lots of it."


	5. 05

"What do you think you're doing?" Bulma grabbed Vegeta's shoulder, and nearly succeeded in her attempt to spin him to face her.

"I've had it!" the prince crossed his arms, brows creasing as he turned from the spaceship to look her in the eye. "Kakarrot's been gone for _months_ now without a damn word on when he'll be back. Who am I supposed to spar?"

Bulma seemed to consider this, and knew that whatever other conflicts Vegeta had with his rival, fighting would always be the prevailing concern. Indeed, the Saiyajin had spent a great deal of time pouting and doing nothing at all in the time of Goku's absence, punctuated by whatever training Trunks could drag his father into. She'd seen that melancholy before, and as much as she dreaded dealing with the potentially massive elephant in the room upon Goku's return, she dreaded more what Vegeta might resort to without his training partner.

At her silence, Vegeta elaborated: "He could've at least teleported back to tell me how long he needed!"

"Please," Bulma sighed, patting Vegeta's back. "It was _your _fault he got upset enough to leave in the first place. Why would he come back before he was ready?"

"Whatever," Vegeta snorted. "I'm leaving."

"Just one second," Bulma grinned and grabbed him again, and he almost flinched under her condescension: "How are you going to find her planet? Did she tell you where it is?"

"No," he growled, closing his eyes in frustration. "But I'll find it. It can't be that hard to sense once I'm far enough out." When he opened them again, Bulma's face was still painted in a smirk that said she knew something he didn't. "What, you do?"

"Not right now," she answered, but still the smirk didn't falter.

"So?"

"So guess who I gave a _scouter _which I can easily _track_?"

Vegeta's lips pulled back to reveal a toothy grin.

"But," she started to turn away, teasing him. "I won't tell you where she is unless you bring me along."

"Wha—" he began, and pounded one fist into the ship in rage. "Absolutely not!"

"Are you just worried that those nasty brutes will snatch up a pretty thing like me?" she winked. "Hm?"

"No, I—"

"What?" she wheeled around to face him again. "Are you saying I'm not pretty?"

"No, I'm—I mean, yes, you are—" he spat words as quickly as they came to him, but they didn't seem to appease the woman, who had taken up his customary cross-armed, wide-legged stance, perhaps mocking him. "It's just you're—"

"Excellent; I knew you'd agree," she smiled, her voice dripping honey with a dangerous enough edge that Vegeta knew not to argue. "I'll call Chi-Chi and arrange for Trunks to stay the night there while we're gone, and let the important people know I'll be gone for a while so they can take care of the company."

"Dammit...Bulma..." Vegeta murmured to himself as she turned and walked away, humming.

...

Enma had sent Goku a puzzled look as the man had passed the check-in station with nothing but a small wave to the giant red god. While he hadn't a clue what had happened to Goku, and had been rather too busy to check, the very fact that the Saiyajin was capable of any expression other than a grin or a confused stare had been enough to perplex and, indeed, sadden him.

Goku had continued past the area and made his way to someplace private he'd discovered during all his time in Heaven. In the seven years he was dead between Cell and Buu, he'd spent his share of time here, wondering if leaving Earth behind had been the best choice after all, wondering if the son he'd never met would ever want to know him and wondering if Vegeta was doing as much training as he was.

But this time, he had been pondering other things. He couldn't believe what had happened—had only really been able to bring it back to his memory within the past few days, a small portion of this stay in Heaven, and every time he did it lead to tears leaking from his eyes. He guessed Chi-Chi—and Vegeta?—had been awaiting his return for two or maybe three months now.

Carefully and painfully, he played through the memories. Why had Vejata done that—_why_ would she go that far? He remembered from long ago, during their time on the ship, that she had seemed a bit flustered by him when he had performed the near-deed that had been the cause of the entire problem. Goku knew he wasn't always good at understanding people, but he'd always felt like Vejata would never resort to that kind of thing. Was she really that..._selfish_?

But yes—yes she was. She'd been blowing up buildings and hurting people just in the hopes of finding one who could power up and compete with her. She'd felt like her people were too weak... At this thought, he remembered something Vegeta had mentioned in passing, in one of their sparring sessions before the whole fiasco. The prince himself had been expecting Vejata's return to Earth at any time—something about her being bored. Was she doing these things because she was bored—not just to try to make the other Saiyajin stronger? Would she destroy them all out of boredom? _Then there would be nothing left for her to be the queen of._

_The queen._

The act Vejata had pressed upon him in her trickery was not unfamiliar to him, though he had never experienced it under such a malicious setup. Sometimes, Chi-Chi had asked him to do it to her because it made her happy—he couldn't deny it; he liked it just as much. But, he remembered, sometimes she said that she wanted a baby, and that was what they had to do to get one.

But why would Vejata want one of those? Was that even it? Or did she do it just to be mean to him? A bitter voice inside Goku told him that he wouldn't put it past her. Vegeta had done some pretty mean things, too—but never anything like _that_.

He leaned back until he rested against the swaying grasses beneath him. _Maybe if I figure this out...maybe it'll bother me less_. He hoped so, because right now his chest still ached from the betrayal, and he didn't like the feeling one bit.

...

Vejata rapped her fingers against the table, cursing herself for her lack of foresight. Months, and she felt no different—looked no different—she felt nothing, and the scouter saw nothing. Unconsciously she brought her hand to her stomach and tapped her fingers rhythmically against it, their twitching a symptom of her fury.

There was nothing there, and she was stuck once more.

She weighed her options—there were those dragon balls, and she could perhaps find them if she devoted some time to it. But what was the point in wishing Goku back? She knew that at best, he might ignore her—at worst, he would kill her; as he should, if he had any sense. And certainly there would be no way to simply wish a being into existence. If such magic existed, at least, she wanted no part of it; the fact that the dead were never truly dead as long as those balls existed made her shiver enough.

Or she could go back to what she had been doing, more desperately this time. In these months she'd spent little time outside, holed up as she fretted first over whether killing Goku had been a bad idea—what if he hadn't impregnated her?—and then cursing herself, for her nightmare had come true; there would be no heir from Goku. The man's body was saved, carefully frozen and put away where only she could get to it—but there was little she could do with that, for the Saiyajin possessed no technology that could be of use to her. If events of the past were any indication, seeking it out would only lead to the eventual fall of her people, as some monster of Goku's shadow wreaked havoc upon them as the younger, more powerful copies of Vegeta had.

Yes, if she was to uphold her duty to the Saiyajin race, she would have to wait and hope some stronger Saiyajin did come along, that there was just one on the planet she could provoke into transformation, or at least enough of a rage that his strength could even near hers. It seemed unlikely, and her mind was racing to find a solution.

Then there was one other matter that concerned her—when would Goku's friends find out he wasn't coming back?

...

"Well, dammit," Bulma huffed.

Vegeta glanced over at her, and, seeing that she was genuinely upset, laid an arm across her back. "I thought it might be so."

"I came all this way and I can't even get off the ship? I can't believe it!" she threw Vegeta's comforting arm away from herself, pacing madly in front of the screens. "I was okay on Namek!"

"Namek's gravity wasn't so different from Earth's," Vegeta reminded her. "You got lucky. Planet Vegeta's gravity was about ten times what you know, so it only makes sense the Saiyajin would select a new planet with similar living conditions."

"You're just lucky I'm such a genius," she crossed her arms as she collapsed onto the captain's chair. "That I can change the gravity in this ship at all."

"Yes, yes," Vegeta smirked. "A fragile human as yourself had better be smart, to survive in space." He turned his back to her, but it was clear from his gazing over his shoulder that he was still focused on her. Finally, with the slightest affection warming his voice, he added, "What other reason would I have had to mate with anyone so weak?"

Bulma laughed a little, tucking a few locks of hair behind her ear. "Yeah, well, I could say the same for you. I'll never find a man as smart as I am." One corner of her mouth lifted.

"That's lovely of you," he chortled, and prepared to punch in the code that would allow him to exit the ship. "I'll just go find Kakarrot, figure out what's going on, and we'll be back in no time." He hit a few numbers and waited for the slow mechanisms of the door to lurch to life. Vegeta's brows furrowed and he hoped that Goku wouldn't make it too tough to invite him back to Earth. There was the additional factor of Vejata—what was she up to? Her power seemed to have grown fainter at their arrival; almost as faint as Goku's, which Vegeta could not feel at all from where the ship had landed. What game were they playing at? He felt his heart accelerate with some unnamed concern. "I hope."

...

She knew she had not suppressed it enough, and did all she could to gather herself as a powerful force toppled her front door. "Where's Kakarrot?" his voice boomed through the hallways. Vejata stepped from her room, calming her breathing and steeling her gaze. She crossed her arms as Vegeta approached, daring him to shout in her sacred hallways again. So he did. "Kakarotto!" he called, and continued in mocking singsong, "Time to come home!"

"I'd say he's fairly well home," Vejata grated out. She swept past the prince and out the fallen door, forcing Vegeta to follow her if he meant to question her cryptic words.

Begrudgingly, he did. "What have you done?" he growled. "I'm sure Kakarrot feels no more at home here than he ever has on any other alien planet."

Her scowl twisted into a grin as she met Vegeta's eyes. "Oh, he made himself _quite_ at home," she assured him softly. "After so graciously accepting my invitation."

Vegeta took a moment to process her words, and noted with alarm how incoherent she seemed compared to the last time they had met—he knew that mad smirk, and it was the look of utmost desperation. He glanced at his surroundings, finding crumbled buildings in the distance—far more than he would expect of even the meanest of neighborhood spats. "I see you must have gotten bored here," he responded, putting her words on the backburner to simmer while he considered their meaning. "Or," he added as an afterthought, chuckling faintly, "you're promoting some very interesting architectural practices."

"Weaklings," she spat, her smirk suddenly disappearing.

"I hate to say it," Vegeta's face warmed with smugness, "but I warned you about this. I wonder," he paced closer to Vejata, taking a few steps around her as if evaluating a show animal. "Why haven't you come sniveling back to Earth?" When she responded in nothing but an increase of vigor of her breathing, Vegeta continued. "Why, you look as if you've not had to fight very much at all since we last met."

"What makes you say that?" she muttered, restraining her urge to slug him across the face for his cockiness.

"For one," the man began, stopping in place and spinning on his heel to face her, "you've the distinct _dissatisfaction_ in your eyes of a Saiyajin who's been a bit too _pent up_ recently."

Her eyes widened at his choice of words—did he know? Did he know, already, somehow, what she had done?

Noting her changing expression, Vegeta's smirk deepened as an idea struck him. "And for another," he chuckled, "you look a little..." he nodded toward her, as if that would explain anything, but tacked on an explanation at her expense: "..._weightier._"

Vejata's hand snapped to her stomach, and a vicious growl ripped through her throat. Vegeta narrowed his eyes, feeling clever for having found something that was finally taking him somewhere in this interrogation. "Ah," his soft laughs rippled through the air, poisonous velvet as they reached her ears. "Were you expecting a little_ more_ there? What is that?" he jerked his chin toward the hand that covered her belly, eyes sparkling knowingly.

"Heir," she answered quietly, knowing he would understand. While she knew launching into a fight with the man at this moment would seal her fate, as his teeth gleamed at her she was sorely tempted.

"Not much of one," he snickered at her flat abdomen. "At least, I can't sense a damn thing."

"Of course not," her voice quivered through her clenched teeth. "I've known _that_ for months."

"Oh," Vegeta snorted at her, "because they're _so _hard to make that you just couldn't manage to do it again in that time."

"This one was," and her hand gripped tighter against her, and she let a spark of madness flicker into her eyes again. "It almost worked, too."

"What's that?" his question was nonchalant, but with dread he felt the pieces coming together. He turned away and seemed to buff his gloved fingers against his shirt in faked boredom, but his eyes remained carefully trained on the queen. She kept her hand and her gaze on her empty womb. "Well?" he insisted.

"My way out," she hissed.

Vegeta rolled his eyes at her unhelpful response, but froze just as he was preparing to mock her again. Voice as cold and deadly as the feeling that was creeping through his veins, he asked without watching her, "Where's Kakarrot?"

Vejata didn't respond, feeling her chest pounding as the prince's rage boiled. She watched carefully as he turned to face her, the graveness of his stare challenging her to lie as he asked again, "_Where is Kakarrot_?"

Her eyes met his, but she did not speak.

"You'd best answer me," Vegeta lit a ki blast in his palm, and for the seconds she kept silent it grew.

"You didn't want him," she finally answered, her voice scarcely a whisper even if her eyes seemed wild with arrogance and power, "so I took him."

Vegeta seemed starved for air now as his chest rose and fell rapidly in rage. "And _THEN_?" he shouted, the blast in his palm bursting in size as he pumped more energy into it.

"He was a liability I had to deal with," she powered up, preparing to take the brunt of his blast—until she read his strength on the scouter that rested within her eye. She braced herself upon the tips of her toes as subtly as she could manage.

"_You_..." his heavy breathing did not entirely mask his words, "_underhanded...bitch._" He roared and ascended, first meeting Vejata's power and then surpassing it. "No one kills Kakarotto while I'm alive!"

As he fired the enormous blast, Vejata sprung into the air, thanking the gods she had chosen to wear the scouter. The split-second she needed she could now afford as Vegeta approached her—she pressed her eyes shut and focused, lifting two fingers to her brow.


	6. 06

NOTE: I just wanted to take a second to thank the anonymous reviewer for that really kind comment on the last chapter. You made my day, seriously.  
I hope you and any other readers out there (?) continue to enjoy this story!

...

Goku plucked a few leafy grass blades from beneath himself, absentmindedly examining them. He wasn't ready to leave his private thinking spot yet—this he knew. As much as he wanted to find the friends and fellow fighters he'd met during his last stay in Heaven, and perhaps challenge them to a rematch while he was here, an unfamiliar emotion weighed down on his insides and held him back.

It had been there for some time now, this emotion—ever since he had decided that he had to acknowledge what had been done to him. His gloom about Vegeta's rejection had paled, and he knew he could have handled that better, that he acted impulsively and did something that the prince had every right to be uncomfortable with, no matter how much it saddened Goku. Yes, maybe Vegeta had reacted a little bit strongly, so it was okay that Goku left for a little while. He had been sure that what had happened to him while he was on Planet Vegeta was, at least in part, his own fault. After all, he'd been so desperate for Vegeta's affection that he'd fallen for Vejata's trick, and sometimes even made the conscious decision not to snap out of it—when he'd suddenly remembered that the prince did not have a tail, and this person did—and when this Vegeta was nowhere near as strong as the one he knew and wished for. He lowered his gaze in guilt, knowing that, in part, he had let it happen.

But amongst these waves of guilt another emotion arose—the unfamiliar one, one that scared him. Goku knew, too, that for whatever reason Vejata had chosen to take advantage of his confused state, of his emotional turmoil and desperation to know how it would feel to have Vegeta accept him. Whatever her excuse, she had used him, and he got the feeling that that was the reason he was dead now—she knew that when he woke up, and realized what had happened, he wouldn't like it. The frightening emotion accompanied the betrayal he felt; this woman he'd counted amongst his friends abused any and all the trust he'd put in her to support him in his time of mental chaos.

He felt like she must have had a reason for what she did—she was pretty smart, after all, just like Vegeta—but it escaped him. The only thing that had come to him so far was that it might have to do with having a child, but he couldn't make sense of it. As he recalled all the memories he had of any time they'd seemed to get close, he knew there were signs that she _wanted _him...whatever they were, but his gut told him so. He just hadn't thought she would have desired him that much, that she would hurt him like that. Was it really worth it? Worth just that one time, that one act? It didn't make sense.

He knew that even if he couldn't discover it, she had a reason for what she'd done. Maybe even a good one—he was a "benefit of the doubt" type of guy.

But even with this thought, his blood chilled with the unfamiliar feeling—upsetting not in what it told him to do, but what it told him not to do.

Goku wasn't sure if he wanted to forgive her.

...

Bulma sighed, even though there was no one around to hear her. From the window she could see the landscape—largely barren, with stubby, scruffy plants cluttering the otherwise flat plain. In the distance, there was a village, but she could hardly make it out from where she was. She ached to explore it, and at this thought turned back to the materials before her. If Vegeta took much longer, well, she'd be finished with her invention. There were so many supplies on the ship that she could make nearly anything she wanted, if at the expense of a few luxuries—coffee, movies, and a handful of outfits, in this case.

It was a small price to pay for the end result. She pressed her feet against the open soles to see if the contact jump-started the circuit, and with its success she grinned at her brilliance. Maybe when she got home, she could even market these through her company as a children's toy—gravity reduction boots. She could already imagine Vegeta demanding a pair that would do the opposite and smiled, imagining the impatient tapping of his boot against the floor. She'd hem and haw about whether it was possible to do such a thing before pulling an already finished pair from behind her back. He'd snatch them from her with his classic smirk—Bulma had accepted, by now, that this was his usual way of saying thanks—and tell her to—

"_Move it!_"

She was shoved from her workspace beside the console and fell to the floor, many of her supplies scattering around her. Vegeta was madly punching figures into the console and initiating the takeoff process, swearing loudly. Odd, though, the pitch—had someone kicked him in the—_oh_. "Ve...Vejata?"

...

He screamed every nasty word he could think of to the sky, fists shaking in rage at his sides. It was too late—too far from the planet for him to hope to get there; sure death waited if he tried. "_Bitch,_" he muttered, turning to face the long tracks his boots had left in the ground as he'd screeched to a halt beneath the ascending spacecraft. Well, there were other things with which to concern himself, and when he reached her he would give her only moments to regret her decision—_or eternity,_ his eyes darkened, _depending on how one thinks about it._

Vegeta marched off toward the nearest village, and he had hardly reached the outskirts when he encountered a Saiyajin. "Brat!" he shouted much louder than was necessary.

"I'm no _brat_," she sneered, whipping about to face him, but her features quickly grew fearful. "Q-Queen...er...I..."

"Don't be foolish," Vegeta's voice rumbled, and her eyes widened further at the realization that he was not, in fact, Queen Vegeta.

"Who are you?" she snapped, quickly regaining her composure and planting her hands on her hips. "You sonuvabitch, you look-alike!" The girl blew a raspberry, revealing herself to be every bit the child her stature suggested. "I shoulda known."

"Oh? And how's that?" he challenged. The girl's features were vaguely familiar—perhaps she was the child or grandchild of some elite he'd known in his youth.

"You ain't no Super Saiyajin, else your hair'd be gold and—"

Vegeta grinned, and promptly proved her wrong as he powered up. "Really?"

She shivered at the sight, and all her confidence seemed to be swept from under her as her hair blew in the wind the prince generated. "W-were _you_ the one...who ruined my village?" she sniffled. "And k-killed my friend?"

"That would have been your queen," Vegeta snarled, falling back to his normal state before the whelp could come any closer to tears. "Not me." As her questioning eyes shone up at him, he clarified: "I am Prince Vegeta."

"N-nice try," she rubbed her nose vigorously. "He died."

"Well, who else might I be?" he squatted to meet her eyes. "I'm a Super Saiyajin. I look just like your queen, don't I? Or rather—she looks just like _me._ But I look older than she does, hm?" The girl nodded. "I suppose you weren't alive when King Vegeta ruled." She shook her head. "He was my father. He was sure I wouldn't survive under Freeza," Vegeta explained, and decided to gloss over the details, "but I did."

"N-no way Queen Vegeta will let you rule," the girl muttered, gazing at her feet. "She kills everybody who tries."

"Oh?" Vegeta raised an eyebrow.

"My daddy. He didn't know—he didn't know she was a Super Saiyajin when she came back after being gone all that time. I didn't know who she was then," the girl continued, playing with the fingerless gloves she wore. "'Cause I was born while she was gone. Daddy w-was gonna be the new king. He was real strong."

"Not strong enough," Vegeta muttered. "It's the way of things. Get used to it," the harsh words came out in a gentle tone. "Was your father that strong? Perhaps you can become a Super Saiyajin and avenge him," he suggested halfheartedly.

"The first time," the girl started, and her wild hair seemed to stand on end as she imagined something, "the first time I ever saw her. Queen Vegeta. When she came back." Vegeta raised his eyebrows, waiting. He found himself watching the girl's tail as it drifted from her waist, floating behind her as its fur, too, stood on end. It twitched a few times before she continued. "She was glowin'...crazy eyes," the girl balled her fists, eyes on Vegeta's feet, as if looking at his face might remind her too well. "With my dead daddy in her arms. And threw him at my mommy," her breathing hastened, "and laughed."

Vegeta's brows furrowed as the girl's tail whipped about madly now, clearly out of her control. He noticed a spike in her power—an impressive one, given her age.

"I got really mad. And she laughed at me, too."

"And then what?"

"I'm good at games," she answered. "Like playing dead."

The prince blinked a few times, and reached out to grip her shoulder. "What's this nonsense?" he questioned gruffly.

"W-well she thought she killed me, but she didn't know how strong I am an' her blast was puny," the girl seemed proud of this even in her shaken state. "But she didn't have t' know that." She grinned a little.

"You're a true Saiyajin," Vegeta grinned back.

"You're not as mean as her," she noted. "Thanks."

"Can I ask you a favor?" Vegeta brought himself back to his full height from his squatting position.

The girl shrugged, wrapping her tail around her waist once more. "Maybe," she answered playfully.

"Can you tell me where to find the fastest spacecraft on this planet?"

The girl blinked, the corners of her mouth turning down. "S-sorry...but there aren't any. We're not allowed in space, mommy says. Alla spaceships are gone."

"Ridiculous," Vegeta spat. "Are you certain?"

"I guess there's gotta be some of those little ones," she pondered. "Those slow ol' ancient ones from...whassit...the ice guy."

"Freeza."

"Him!" she nodded vigorously. "I dunno if they work, but there might be some at the castle. Queen Vegeta has all kindsa crazy stuff."

"Queen Vegeta is gone," Vegeta told her, laughing inwardly. "And you'd best bank on her not coming back."

...

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Bulma shrieked. "Turn around _right now _and get Vegeta and Goku!"

Vejata chuckled. "I don't think so." She tilted her head, watching Bulma's face redden in fury. "Who knows?" she mused darkly, "Perhaps he'll be a better ruler than I. At the least, he'll do, for the time being."

"He's just going to follow us!" the blue-haired woman crossed her arms defiantly. "You're stupid. It's pointless."

"No he won't," she assured Bulma smoothly. "No spacecraft on New Vegeta."

"W-what?" her anger faltered. "But to have gotten there at all, the Saiyajin must have—"

"I destroyed it all," she grinned madly. "They can leave when I damn well say they can."

Bulma bit her lip, imagining Vegeta stuck on the surface as he realized he was trapped, but her face lit up as she remembered something. "Goku! No matter how upset he is, I'm sure he'll teleport himself and Vegeta back to us, or back to Earth." She crossed her arms, grinning victoriously.

"Wouldn't bet on it," Vejata chuckled.

She frowned, analyzing Vejata's words and behavior. As far as she could see, there were two possibilities: either Goku was much more upset than either she or Vegeta had thought, or... "_No._"

Vejata raised an eyebrow, shrugging as if she hadn't a clue what Bulma was suggesting by the single word she'd uttered.

"Why?" she leaned against the wall and slid down until she was sitting, trying to ignore her eyes as they glazed over, watery, in hopelessness. "How long ago?"

Again Vejata lifted a shoulder noncommittally, turning away as she tried to press the thoughts from flowing back into her mind. She had not particularly enjoyed killing Goku—but it had to be done. She recalled the unreal lifelessness of his face, so vibrant with some emotion all the times she'd seen it, her clammy hands as she moved him—_him_, the strongest Saiyajin ever to have lived, dead beneath her palms. The man who had not so much as bruised her even after she slaughtered his best friend in cold blood—the man from whom she'd learned the accursed ascension. She had insisted on wishing him back to life not so long ago, to help defeat the copies of Vegeta that had destroyed her planet and others—brutally murdered his and Vegeta's sons—and now he would never be wished back again, not if she wanted to live.

Goku's body had been saved, in part because she wondered if there was some way she could use it that had not occurred to her yet. Besides that, she had considered a private, Saiyajin funeral for him—then had considered burying him beneath the dirt as the man had done for Vegeta—but neither of those seemed right; perhaps it was sacrilegious to declare a man so immortal dead without the consent of the universe. So she'd frozen it and waited, until it could become practical or until, at the very least, she knew what to do with it.

She regretted her decision only because her plan had not worked—but did not like the faint squirming of guilt in her gut. Vejata wasn't sorry, but feared the inevitable day someone would make her so—perhaps Goku would rise from the dead of his own volition and take his vengeance without warning. Or one of his friends would find out, and they would all come down upon her. Vejata returned her attention to Bulma. "You will not tell them."

"What?" she lowered her eyebrows, confused.

"Your friends. You will not tell them what I did."

Bulma seemed to nearly bare her teeth at the Saiyajin. "Like hell I won't!"

"No," Vejata stepped forward, picking Bulma up by the collar of her shirt and pressing her back against the wall, her toes barely touching the ground. "You won't. We're going to Earth—but they won't know you're there. You're still on vacation with Vegeta," she asserted in a hiss. "You won't talk to any of them."

Steeling her gaze, Bulma answered boldly, "Wouldn't it be easier to just kill me? Obviously you have no qualms with killing your friends," she challenged. "Then you wouldn't have to worry about it."

Vejata dropped the woman back to her feet and turned away. "It would be easier, wouldn't it?"

Bulma instantly regretted her words, and felt her heart threaten to explode from her chest. She wasn't ready to die—not now, not with no one to know she was gone, no one who would know to wish her back—not again, no, she wasn't ready for the pain. "I..."

The queen whipped back around to the woman, stared her squarely in the eye, and clenched her fists, brows drawing down into a deep scowl. She held a hand up to Bulma, and the small sphere of _ki_ that lit up against Vejata's palm was close enough to heat the woman's nose.

Clutching at her clothes in panic, Bulma cringed, closing her eyes turning her head to the side. The heat from the _ki_ now radiated onto her cheek, sweltering, and she wondered if the intensity of the heat was just her imagination, just her body reacting to the immense stress, and she squirmed. After several more moments, though—or perhaps they were minutes—she had to know, felt her blood urging her not to as she cracked one eye open.

Vejata had returned to the captain's chair. Her head was bowed, and Bulma could not see her face as it rested against one hand. "V-Vejata?" she stammered, and immediately wondered if it would have been best for her to slink away, instead.

"Get out of my sight," Vejata growled. When she could see from the corner of the eye that Bulma had not moved, she turned to face the woman.

She clutched her hands to herself as the queen revealed her pained expression, eyes burrowing deep into her. Bulma inclined her head and then dashed around the corner, breathing heavily as she registered the magnitude of it: _I'm not dead_.


	7. 07

NOTE: Okay, sorry for the twice-in-a-row pre-chapter note, but you guys are so awesome. Thank you so much for your interest in this story and for leaving comments; two days ago, I honestly thought no one was reading this story on this site. Not trying to whore for attention or anything, I'm just honestly awed by your kind comments.

Also, now's as good a time as any for me to say with fairly high confidence that this "series" of fics should have three parts when all's said and done (Red Window; Anaugust Gold; ?). In between this one and the last one, I will probably take a break to write another fic along the lines of "Icebox" in terms of humor.

Anyway...I do hope you enjoy this chapter!

...

Vegeta smirked to himself as he kicked down the next door to find just what he'd been looking for. In his wake was an entire hallway of burst-through, unhinged, and otherwise destroyed doors, but in the end the thing had been in Vejata's own personal living space, behind one of the secured doors. He chuckled. _Secured_. Not against a Super Saiyajin, it wasn't.

The sight of the pod brought him back to days of mowing down entire populations between long stretches of travel, punctuated by the inevitable required visit to Freeza, where the tyrant laid out for him plain and simple all the things he was doing wrong. He'd done his best to make the best of the time he spent slaughtering the weaklings to make up for Freeza's polite viciousness toward him, but there was always the travel to slow him down—always the pod, too slow no matter how new the model.

The thing itself was badly damaged; perhaps a few Saiyajin had found it before Vejata got to it, and had been fighting over it. The Saiyajin must have taken these pods to this planet in the first class; it was unlikely they could have made a covert escape in anything bigger. Was this the only one left? If so, he would need to make some repairs—cursed inwardly that Bulma had come this far only to be taken away from him, when she could likely perform this task within hours. Well, he would have to manage; he'd had enough experience with the pods, certainly, but in his youth frequently insisted that Nappa fix the things for him when something went wrong.

The prince ducked inside the pod, searching beneath its meager padding for the manual. He was glad to find it was there—happier yet that he could still read its script, the same familiar text as had flashed across the scouter he once wore. As he compared the diagrams on the manual to the pod itself, he groaned at how much work was yet to be done. Wouldn't Vejata have wanted this to be functional, ready to go? But, no, of course—she could teleport if she needed to, perhaps even to somewhere else with the technology she needed. Or perhaps this was a recent find, and she'd not yet had time. Shrugging and pressing the manual open to the page describing the function of the first thing he noted was broken—the controls—he sighed, closing his eyes and hoping to channel Bulma's talent.

_Bulma..._

...

She breathed heavily as she turned onto her side, pressing her eyes closed. After she'd left Vejata's sight, just as she'd been told to, Bulma had made her way to her bedroom—her and Vegeta's bedroom. Death had never crept so close to her, it seemed—not even the time she had actually died. No, that wasn't entirely true—when Vegeta had appeared in the middle of the stadium and destroyed entire sections of the audience, just a couple of years before—that was the only other time she'd felt this fear. His blast had been feet away from taking her with it, and she hadn't imagined that she would ever again be threatened in such a way. Was Vejata merely saving her for later—in case something went wrong between here and Earth? Did she have some more sinister plan in mind? Bulma been unable to sleep as these ideas crept up against her; but then, it had only been an hour at most since her life had been threatened.

Just as she was drifting into a fitful sleep, visions of how Goku might have died and of Vegeta's abandoned soul behind her lids, she heard faint noises outside her door and willed herself not to turn around to investigate them.

"Bulma," came a soft voice from the doorframe. The woman bit her lip, holding as still as she could, hoping she could feign sleep. "Bulma. I think you're awake. Look at me," the voice commanded, still quiet. At this the woman tilted her head slightly, glancing over her shoulder. Vejata stood boldly in the doorframe, her stance wide and her arms crossed.

"What is it?" Bulma finally spoke, surprised to hear the quiver in her voice and the strange way it hitched, as if she'd just been crying. "Come back here to kill me?"

She heard a growl erupt from Vejata's throat, and there was no answer. Bulma shivered and turned away again; if she could see the answer, she did not want to know it. Finally, Vejata hissed, "Do not mock me."

"I..." Bulma blinked the wetness from her eyes. "I wasn't."

"Just because I couldn't..." Vejata started, but paused as she heard some sniffle or hiccup from Bulma. "Compose yourself, woman," she spoke again, more sharply this time, and felt her fingernails digging through the layers of her gloves and pressing into her palms as her fists clenched tightly. "You will not die today."

Bulma turned to face her this time, eyes swimming in some mixture of confusion and relief. "You...won't kill me? Today? V-Vejata, there are no days in space...s-so by 'today'...what do you..."

Vejata turned away, swearing just loudly enough that Bulma could hear her as she made her way to the opposite side of the hallway and entered the room. The sound stopped abruptly at the sound of a shutting door and clicking lock, and the woman closed her eyes again. The images were still there, but became less gruesome as her body took control of her mind and lifted it into sleep. As her last finger was pried away from consciousness, she hoped desperately that when she awoke, she could find a way out of this—to bring Goku back, to get Vegeta off the planet, and to do it, somehow, without Vejata knowing.

...

Goku nodded to himself with resolve. He'd done enough thinking, he decided—and had been in Heaven for far too long. Had no one found him yet? Didn't anyone know he was dead? _Well, it's time to tell 'em._

In moments, he was at Kaio's side, grinning already at the way the man leapt into the air with surprise. "Goku!" he shouted, exasperated. "Don't _do _that to me! I thought you might be here to blow me up again!" Kaio brought a cloth to his sunglasses, rubbing them nervously. "Say, what are you doing dead again so soon?"

For several long moments Goku wondered if he had really been ready to emerge from his meditation yet, after all, but finally he gave a noncommittal shrug. "It's kind of a complicated story..."

"Speaking of complicated stories," Kaio started, "I've got a new joke for you..."

"No time!" Goku nearly wailed, throwing his hands in front of his chest defensively. "No one knows that I'm dead—I need to tell 'em! I was hoping you could help me..."

"Always using me," Kaio sighed. "All right, go ahead. It's not like I ever do anything else around here. Who do you want to talk to?"

Goku frowned, realizing he hadn't thought about this yet. He took in a deep breath and decided that it was time to attack the problem head-on. "Vegeta."

Kaio seemed to focus for a few moments before turning back to Goku. "Do you know where he is? I can't find him on Earth."

"Hm? Oh," Goku scratched his head thoughtfully. "Gee, I don't know. I figured that was where he'd be." He perked up and grinned, "Hey, maybe he figured out I'd be on New Vegeta!"

Kaio snorted. "Wherever that is...all right..." and he sank into deep thought again. "Yes, that'd be him." Goku eagerly placed his hand against Kaio's back, caught up in the excitement of having found the prince. His demeanor immediately grew more serious as he remembered what it was he meant to discuss with the man. "Go ahead," Kaio told him.

"Vegeta?"

...

The prince's ears perked up, and for a moment he was searching for the voice. With a screwdriver between his teeth, he mustered a, "Wherrdryr whr?"

"I'm talking to you through Kaio," the voice drifted back, and the prince rolled his eyes. Of course; he should have known. After all, he'd been present himself last time the man had spoken through the blue god. "And speak up! I can barely hear you."

Vegeta spat the screwdriver out and leaned back to recline against the wall. "Kakarotto, we need to have some words," he spoke, not sure where to look. At the extended silence on the other man's side, Vegeta's brows knit. "Kakarot?"

"Y-yeah, you're right, Vegeta," the voice echoed back after a moment. "And I...I wanted to say that I'm sorry for what I did. To you. I mean. I should've thought—about—I mean, it was silly, I—well, obviously you—"

"Forget about that for now," the prince responded gruffly. "What happened while you were here?"

After another extensive silence, Goku asked, "Is there...is there anybody there with you? Where's Vejata?"

"Gone," Vegeta snarled. "She took my ship, and with Bulma in it. I'm stranded here until I can fix this pod."

"D-did she seem...er..." Goku's fretful sigh resonated within the fairly small room. "That is, the way she looked, was she sort of...

Vegeta chuckled darkly. "She wasn't pregnant, Kakarrot." He crossed his arms and rapped his fingers against his biceps. "But tell me—what _happened_?"

"Y-you knew? That she...I mean, you think that was what she wanted?"

"She wanted an heir," Vegeta growled. "To take her place. This is what I know. Kakarrot, what did she do to you?"

At the length of the silence that stretched after his question, Vegeta was beginning to wonder if somehow Kaio's connection had cut out. He was about to open his mouth to speak when Goku's response came. "I-I don't think you'll l-like me anymore Vegeta," he seemed to mutter. "Or her."

"I never really did," he started, and then amended, "like her, I mean. For god's sake, Kakarrot, she killed you!" Vegeta growled. "Why am I never able to prevent your death?" He seemed to muse on this for a while, fury bubbling within him, as Goku remained silent once more. "She seemed damn cocky about it, too, the bitch," he hissed to himself. "Kakarrot, I cannot imagine what you would have done that could possibly make me—"

"I slept with her," Goku blurted, and Vegeta could hear a muffled squeak that must have been Kaio's attempt to stifle his shock.

"Wh-why?" the prince blinked, the cogs that spun within his mind screeching to a halt. He'd suspected it, yes, but to hear it from Goku—like _this_—was another thing entirely.

"She...she tricked me. She acted like...I mean...she _really_ looked like...that is...I kind of went along with it, but Vegeta..." he paused, and Vegeta could almost see him rocking back and forth on his heels. "I slept with her 'cause...she...was just like _you._"

"That's...preposterous," Vegeta muttered. "For one thing, I've got..." he stopped as he seemed to realize that he was drifting from the topic. "Kakarrot—you're saying—she tricked you into thinking she was _me_—and so—"

"Y-yeah," Goku answered quietly. "Kind of. I mean, I could have stopped, and figured it out, I think. I...I'm sorry, Vegeta."

The prince's fists clenched. "Never mind that, moron! She did that—she—all but _raped_ you, Kakarrot."

"I...I guess," the man decided. "I mean I...it wasn't like I really..."

"Shut up! She's on a ship now—_alone _with_ Bulma_," the prince's fists shook.

"She wanted a kid, you said," Goku suggested quietly. "So...Bulma can't do that...so...I don't think..."

Vegeta gathered himself, still growling under his breath. For once, the other Saiyajin was thinking more clearly than he was. He wondered vaguely if the atmosphere here was prone to invoking insanity in any who breathed its air for too long.

"Hey, Vegeta, I...I just want you to know that...I won't...I won't bother you about it," Goku spoke, hoping that the prince's silence had meant he'd accepted his point about Bulma. "I mean, don't worry—I—I won't do anything to you. I won't touch you funny or anything. Just like I never did before."

"Good," Vegeta hissed, unable to completely restrain his bitterness, and he was sure he heard a small gasp from Goku. "There are more pressing matters now—you are dead, and I am stranded until I can fix this thing."

"I could contact Bulma and—"

"Remember that anything she hears, Vejata will hear too," Vegeta warned. "You'd best not suggest a plot, or that traitor will surely spoil it the moment she hears it."

"I guess you might be right," Goku sighed. "Man. We really are stuck, huh?"

"Mm," Vegeta nodded, picking the screwdriver back up and thumbing through the manual until he reached the next relevant page. "I, in more than one way." When he found the next diagram, he laid a heavy steel piece across the manual to keep it on that page.

"What're you doing?" the voice echoed curiously. "I heard a noise."

"Fixing the pod," he grumbled. "Damn thing's even more of a wreck than I thought before."

"Yeah?" Goku chuckled. "Like the one that got me to Yardrat after I left Namek, I'll bet. Man, when I crashed down there it pretty much blew up in my face!"

"I suppose you were lucky, in that regard," Vegeta muttered. "Picking up that technique of yours while you were there."

"Yeah," Goku mused. "And I guess I came back just at the right time, huh? Well, more like Trunks did. I guess...he came back just _to_ the right time!" he laughed at his own joke.

Vegeta nodded absently, scanning the area for the piece the ship was missing. He hadn't given much thought to his son from the future—not these days, when his son in the present required so much attention. His head snapped up. "Kakarrot!"

"Aw, come on Vegeta, you know it was _kind of _funny..."

"Trunks!"

"Yeah...I know, it was a little lame, but..."

"No, fool!" he smirked; he would have smacked the other Saiyajin upside the head had he been beside him. "My son—talk to my son. Tell _him_ to watch out for his mother to arrive back on Earth—and, meanwhile, to gather the dragon balls!"


	8. 08

"I have to know why," Bulma burst into the room, finding Vejata's body curled over the controls. At the sudden disturbance, Vejata's eyes snapped open and she snarled, but her expression softened slightly as she realized that Bulma remained on the other side of the room.

"Why what?" she grumbled, climbing from the console but still standing defensively in front of it, sharp eyes looking Bulma over critically.

"Why you didn't do it. Why you didn't kill me," she answered, her voice strong though she felt her heart pounding as she relived the event.

Vejata's eyebrow arched. "Inviting me to try again?"

Bulma stood her ground, planting her hands against her hips. She watched as Vejata seemed to analyze her carefully, perhaps attempting to decipher her motive for asking such a question. The woman seemed much less in control of herself now than she had months before; her eyes frequently flickered to madness for moments at a time.

It had been several days—perhaps nearly a week—since Vejata had threatened to kill the woman, but most of that time they had spent avoiding contact with one another. It was only a matter of hours—perhaps a day—before they reached the Earth, and Bulma had no idea what would happen once they got there. She had decided to risk it, to find out why she was still alive despite the very fact that she posed an array of risks to Vejata if the Saiyajin did intend to reside on Earth in secrecy. And that was another question... Bulma drew her legs together, leaning against the wall in what she hoped was a casual gesture, trying not to betray her fear. "Just tell me."

"No."

"Oh, come on," Bulma sighed. "Stop being so childish. Do you have some use for me? Come on, you must."

"Not at present," Vejata growled. "Nothing I can think of."

"So why are you keeping me around? You know, when we get to Earth the only place you'll be able to stay and be sure no one will find you is my own," she asserted. "And there, I'll have all my supplies. I'll construct a way to get myself out of there, or maybe a way to contact the others..."

"You'll do no such thing," Vejata warned, her tail twitching behind her as she shifted her legs, crossing one over the other.

Bulma shrugged, feeling a rush of audacity as it seemed to her less and less that Vejata would actually do anything. "Yeah? How do you know?"

In an instant Vejata was directly in front of her, their bodies close enough that Bulma could feel the heat of the queen's rage. "Do you _want _to die?" she roared, slamming her hand against the wall just above Bulma's shoulder. Each of her labored breaths was hot against Bulma's collarbone.

The blue-haired woman was beginning to question her choice, but still adrenaline fueled her. "What if I do?" she grinned deviously, her voice a whisper, and she raised one hand to shove against Vejata's breastplate.

The queen stumbled backward in shock, though Bulma's shove had been playful, certainly not forceful enough to have disturbed the woman's balance so. Vejata stared at Bulma with wide, baffled eyes for a few moments before they narrowed once more. "Of course. With the dragon balls at your friends' disposal, you don't fear death," she hissed, "though it did appear so last time. Did you realize that no one will know to wish you back in time? Have you forgotten this?"

"Cabin fever, maybe," Bulma suggested, trying to emulate Vejata's mad grin. "So tell me, huh? Call it my one last wish before I die."

Vejata turned around, her back to Bulma. "No." Her fists shook with fury at her sides, and Bulma could hear her breathing through clenched teeth. "Now go away."

"Why?" Bulma asked playfully, feeling powerful.

A few quiet words drifted from Vejata, and Bulma was surprised she could hear them as the woman still faced away. She couldn't read the queen's face as she spoke. "I don't want to hurt you." A few quivering breaths followed and Vejata slammed her fist against the nearest wall, spider-web cracks crawling across its surface. "I _can't_ hurt you."

...

"Trunks?" a cautious voice echoed through the meadow, and the boy's head whipped around, leaving him to be caught by one of Goten's punches.

"Stop it!" Trunks called out, rubbing his cheek as Goten screeched to a halt. "Didn't you hear that, stupid?"

"N-no," Goten shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. "Sorry, Trunks. I didn't know you were distracted..."

"Goten!" the voice echoed around them again, despite the distinct lack of walls in the area.

"Dad?" the boy looked around for his father madly. "You're back?"

"Nope," Goku's voice returned. "But I need you guys to _bring _me back. Trunks, I just talked to your dad."

"Is he okay?" the boy blurted, followed by, "Are you guys...dead?"

"Just me," Goku reassured him, laughing to himself. "I need you to find the dragon balls. You need to bring Vegeta back to Earth! He's stuck on New Vegeta right now with no way to leave, 'cept a broken spaceship that he's trying to fix."

"What about my mom?" Trunks asked, so many questions flashing through his mind.

"She's okay—she's on her way back, I think," Goku paused, perhaps thinking. "But listen," he continued, more quietly, as if he was about to tell a secret. "Vejata is on the ship with her. She's...kind of bad, now," they could almost hear Goku wincing. "You have to...I dunno...you should maybe get Bulma away from her, just in case, and...I, er...just get Vegeta back and he can help take care of it." Goku wasn't sure what needed to be done with the woman who had wounded him so—and he wasn't sure if he would be able to think straight enough to make a fair decision. "You might have to beat Vejata up," he suggested weakly, "I mean, if it comes to it."

"What...what happened?" Goten asked, glancing up to the sky. "How did you die?"

"It's a long story..." Goku started, but he knew that there was no dancing around at least the most basic of facts. Trunks and Goten could hear his hesitation. "But...she killed me."

"What?" his son's hands balled into fists. "She seemed okay, but—I can't believe it," his voice shook with poorly suppressed anger. Trunks patted his friend's shoulder, although his eyes betrayed his own share of fury.

"Guys, gather up the dragon balls and wish Vegeta off that planet and back to Earth. I dunno how soon Bulma and Vejata are getting there, but it can't be much longer."

"Should we skip school?" Trunks suggested, his scowl blooming into a grin at the idea. "Sounds like we might have to..."

"It shouldn't take you _that _long to gather them," and Goten guessed that his father was scratching his head at this moment. "I don't think your moms would be very happy about that either."

"So we shouldn't?" Goten piped up, shaking off his anger as well. His dad seemed confident that they could make things right.

"Er...just...use your best judgment, I guess," Goku laughed nervously. "I don't know. I trust you boys to do the right thing."

Trunks smirked at Goten, and the boy smiled back at him. "Okay!" they answered in unison.

...

"Damn," Vegeta sighed, glancing back and forth between the pod and the manual a few more times to confirm his suspicion before performing one last sweep of his immediate surroundings. It seemed a few of the pieces were missing entirely, perhaps destroyed somewhere along the ship's way to its malfunction. Most notably, a substantial portion of the ship's metal body was missing. He was confident he could find some of the same metal elsewhere to replace it, but it would require some searching.

While he had formed a plan with Goku that did not require him to take the ship back to Earth, he wanted to be ready if something went wrong—if Vejata found them before they could make the wish, or if, for some reason, there was a problem with gathering the dragon balls or with making the wish itself. It would be best for him to continue his work—perhaps it would take another day, or maybe two at this rate, but having the option open in case it was needed was his best bet.

The prince decided he needed to stretch his legs anyway, and climbed to his feet, giving the manual one last glance before he exited the room. He hoped he could find one sizeable piece of the metal, rather than having to meld together multiple smaller portions and pray they could hold their strength.

_Here's as good a place as any_.He turned to the next door of Vejata's private suite and powered up, kicking it in. A jolt that coursed through his body made him shudder, but he withstood it with relative ease, chuckling.

Before him was what seemed to be the queen's bedroom. Its trappings were relatively simple for one of her position, but based on small shards of wood and dents on the wall that had yet to be repaired, Vegeta guessed that the furniture had once been something much more ornate, only replaced out of necessity. This, he decided, must also have been the reason for what may have passed as a security system on the doors within the small inlet; at some point, it may have been regular practice for other Saiyajin to break in while Vejata slept, attempting to kill her and take the throne. He remembered vaguely such attempts made on his father during his childhood. But there was nothing of real interest in this room, and he turned to pace over to the last door in the hallway.

After the same procedure, he entered, and immediately noted the relative chill of this room. Bringing his arms up close against his torso, he shivered and flipped the light on to better see his surroundings.

As the lights flickered to life, Vegeta gasped, nearly falling backward over some tools that littered the floor as his feet slipped against a think film of ice that covered the surface in patches. Vegeta caught himself and felt his body being dragged forward across the room by what might have been sheer morbid curiosity. He pressed his hands against the glass, and immediately the frost around them began to melt. The prince drew them back almost as quickly, but not because of the immense cold of the glass.

"Kakarrotto..."

He could have been in a peaceful sleep, by all appearances, but of course the man had just spoken with him from Heaven. Sealed inside this apparatus—built crudely from spare supplies, from what he could tell—was Goku's body, colder than ice and almost paler than it, too. Vegeta bit his lip and balled his cold fist.

It was the first time he had seen Goku since the man had made his confession, and Vegeta bit back the sorrow that accompanied the feeling that he was somehow responsible for this, by saying what he had, sending the other Saiyajin running, lost and vulnerable, right into Vejata's scheme. He was sure the woman had thought it up on her toes, for it had been sloppily executed, poorly planned; the fact that it had failed, with Goku here, dead, was evidence of this. The queen had been lucky enough to teleport and escape on time, leaving Vegeta here as the _de facto_ leader until he could escape. Still her plan had many holes; what had she planned on doing once she'd gotten to Earth? There she would have to reveal herself if she wanted a worthwhile fight, but then surely his son and the others would overtake her and deal with her as they saw fit.

Behind the ice and glass, so pale and ghostly, Goku's body appeared frail, and Vegeta's hot rage caused the ice that lined the floor beneath him to melt into puddles. Goku had exposed his feelings to Vegeta, just as the prince had demanded of him, and now here he was, exposed physically within this case—used and then hastily slaughtered by the woman who was nearly a mirror image of himself, alongside whom he'd fought monstrous manifestations of himself not so long ago. The queen's acts had been almost as heartless as theirs. Vegeta's breath hitched as he wondered if there was something inherently ugly within him, if after all these years and after even coming to peace with his life he still had the capacity to hurt as much as every thing that had been copied from him did.

But both the young copies' acts and Vejata's acts had stemmed from boredom, from the beings finding themselves so much stronger than those around them, having nothing to do and lashing out. And now he was, perhaps, the strongest single being in the universe, so long as Goku was dead. He had been sinking into depression with the man's absence—not madness—but in a flash recalled what he had resorted to before, when Goku had returned for just a day after seven years' absence. He had killed thousands, grinning, reveling in what he used to be, and shivered at the faintest thrill that ran through his spine as he remembered.

_I need you back, Kakarotto._ No matter how he felt about the man's feelings—he still wasn't sure how to begin dealing with them, how to treat Goku, now, with this knowledge; was afraid to even think about whether he had any such feelings toward the other Saiyajin, no matter how much he doubted he did. It would be something he would have to deal with as it came; for once, he refused to train his responses ahead of time.

Vegeta had no doubt that Goku would stay true to his word, would back off and leave the prince alone. But it was something to keep in mind—a very real part of their dynamic that could never be undone.

He turned back to the icy case, remembering one other thing that could never be undone. Vegeta's lips curled away from his teeth at the thought that Vejata had dirtied his image so, and hoped desperately that when he was revived, Goku would be able to look at the prince without thinking of what the queen had done to him. Her actions were foolish and shortsighted, were inexcusable and unjustifiable. So much in Vegeta's mind was awash in confusion, was malleable and changing, but he was at least certain of this: in her act against his rival-now-ally, she had chosen her fate. The moment they next crossed paths, he intended to show her what this fate entailed.


	9. 09

Bulma had been wishing sorely that Vejata's attentiveness would lapse for just long enough that she could sneak up to the controls and program the ship to take them back to New Vegeta, so that she could save her prince—but the woman was sharp, slept on top of the most essential part of the console and woke up anyway whenever Bulma entered the room. The blue-haired woman inwardly swore at herself for building Vejata the scouter, for it was working against her now.

Vejata's well-honed cautiousness and almost unbelievable paranoia were one of the traits that separated her from Vegeta in Bulma's mind; while the man had certainly had his own level of cautiousness when he first started living on her compound, she had at least been able to sneak up on him while he was sleeping, once or twice, without his noticing until it was too late. And unlike the silent calculation with which Vegeta took in his surroundings whenever he awoke, Vejata would snarl and immediately assume a defensive position, ready to field any attacks some nameless ghost would launch upon her at any moment.

Perhaps Vegeta had been like this, once, in the time she had known him—but if he had, it was so long ago and for such a short span that Bulma didn't remember.

"Oh, come on. I'm not going to try to turn us around _now_," Bulma huffed as she entered the room to find Vejata curled up against the console again. "We're less than an hour away. Hell, you could teleport us in from here, I'll bet."

"Nonsense; I'm not taking you straight to your friends," Vejata growled, rubbing her head as she adjusted her position. "They're the only ones on Earth I know well enough to teleport to." She smirked a little. "Nice try."

"Well," Bulma smiled apologetically, "there was no harm in asking." She laughed lightly and then meandered into the kitchen to dig up a midnight snack—for, indeed, she had calculated that it would be well into the night when they arrived at Capsule Corporation.

"No," Vejata closed her eyes, resigned. "I suppose you're right."

Bulma glanced up from her tea momentarily, bemoaning her choice to dismantle the coffee machine in order to make the boots. They lie tucked away in a box in her closet, saved aside for a day when she could perfect their design at home, since they would be of no use to her now.

"Your friends...they can sense _ki _quite proficiently. Yes?" Vejata stood up, stepping closer toward Bulma.

"As far as I know, they're pretty good," Bulma shrugged, feigning nonchalance as she sipped her tea. In nearly their whole time on the ship, Vejata had not intentionally moved this close to Bulma unless she was about to threaten her life.

Vejata nodded, and seemed to shudder a bit. "No matter how well I hide my _ki_, one day they will look and find yours." She stopped perhaps an arm's length from Bulma, but refused to make eye contact with the woman, instead opting to glance back toward the control panel. "And they will find me."

Bulma nodded. "Probably." She looked Vejata over, and was bombarded with memories of the last time they had been together in this ship, this close. Her son had just been killed, and both of them were at fault, for they created the brazen fused being that had caused it. Vejata had seemed to be on her way to improvement, softening. Now, because of her one of Bulma's best friends was dead and Vegeta was stranded with no hope of getting back to Earth without outside help. Vejata had descended into a state of madness, taking Bulma herself as something of a prisoner or hostage. Why Vejata insisted on keeping her alive baffled her somewhat, but it was not a complete mystery to her—and now, as Vejata remained close without lashing out, she felt she knew why.

The queen crossed her arms and let her gaze fall so that she could see Bulma from the corner of her eye. The woman was glancing at Vejata, her face neutral but for one corner of her mouth, which pressed upward knowingly. "What will they do?" she asked quietly.

"You killed Son," Bulma started, alarmed by the volume of her voice, "and I don't know any of his friends that would stand for it." She sighed. "Of course, unlike the rest, I can't do a damn thing about it."

Vejata raised an eyebrow, but still did not turn her head toward Bulma. "You're here with me—I, who have already made, I think, painfully clear that I can't fucking lay a finger on you," she growled. "You could have made me awfully miserable."

Bulma shrugged. "Didn't I? At all?"

"I said _miserable_, not annoyed." And now she did face Bulma. "You still can."

The woman's breath hitched. "What?"

Vejata seemed to ignore this and returned to her original question. "So what will they do with me?"

"Not everybody's quite as forgiving as Son," Bulma started, sighing. "You didn't have any good excuse to kill him so I'm not sure if they'll show you any sympathy. Of course we can bring him back, but in the time between them finding out what you did and us gathering the dragon balls, I'm not sure what they'll do." She crossed one ankle over the other, taking another sip of tea as she averted her eyes from Vejata. "Maybe they'll just put up with you until they can bring Son back and sort things out. You know, if they don't feel like you're a threat to anyone." She frowned. "But you just up and killed him for no reason...why would they trust you not to do the same to someone else?"

Vejata's mouth twitched, but she knew better than to let Bulma know her reason—she had no desire to put her life in further danger. Still, she wondered if Bulma was trying to bait her into telling her about it.

"Why?"

The queen swore quietly. "Why what?" she asked, rhetorically.

"You know." Bulma tightened her crossed arms, indignant. Her fingers tapped against her forearm impatiently. "Why did you kill him?"

"I can't tell you," Vejata murmured. The queen's eyes met the other woman's to find them shaking with anger. "Bulma."

"Fuck, Vejata, I—" Bulma was cut off by a swiftly moving blur that landed against her, its lips on hers. She broke away almost immediately, glaring the queen in the eye. "Dammit, don't make this hard for me."

"Bulma," Vejata rumbled, and Bulma couldn't quite decipher the tone—was it anger? When the queen reached forward to lay one hand against Bulma's neck, the woman shook for a few moments before she remembered that she had nothing to fear—but no, still the quivering persisted. She jumped when Vejata's forehead replaced the hand against her neck, and stiffened as the queen's hands came to rest on either side of her shoulders.

"Vejata, look..." Bulma started to push the woman away, but encountered resistance; Vejata stood still against her force, unmoving, as if she hadn't noticed it.

The queen remained quiet, her breaths collecting in the crook of Bulma's neck. Her hands gently lowered until her fingers caught with Bulma's, and Vejata tilted her head so that her hair brushed against the other woman's face. Bulma closed her eyes against the spikes of hair and, as she stilled, felt Vejata's accelerated heart rate. To calm herself she counted the beats as they raced by. She heard Vejata inhale deeply, and had to count faster. _One-fifty-seven, one-fifty-eight..._ Vejata's feet shifted beneath them and she planted her boots along the outsides of Bulma's, their legs brushing together and her tail swishing gently against their calves. _Two-oh-three, two-oh-four_...

The warmth between them was immense, and behind her eyes Bulma wondered if it was again the awful wave of heat from another _ki_ attack. Vejata's fingers remained laced with hers, and it was then that Bulma realized that the woman was not wearing her gloves. _Two-eighty-eight, two-eighty-nine..._ She shifted slightly, but was fairly well trapped, somehow dwarfed by the Saiyajin who stood shorter than she. Bulma curled her fingers against Vejata's, feeling their sterile softness beneath her own, slightly smaller fingers, well-calloused from her work building but gentle for all the lotion she used to counter the damage. _Three-forty-one, three-forty-two..._

Vejata tilted her head the other way, pressing her lips against Bulma's neck. _Three...seventy..._ She lost count.

One bright light from the console blinked as a calm voice spoke: "Thirty seconds until arrival."

...

"Six-star! The last one!" Goten grinned, pulling it from the large lizard's nest gently with one hand as he restrained the beast beneath his other arm. "Ssh," he crooned, "it's okay. This one isn't one of your babies." He patted its head soothingly, tucking the dragon ball into the sack that Trunks held out. "Hey Trunks, can you catch her a fish or something to make her feel better?"

"Goten, not every little thing in the woods is your pet," he sighed, slinging the bag over his shoulders as a dim orange light glowed through the seams.

"Yeah-_huh_," Goten protested. "They can be if they wanna be."

"C'mon, it's late, your mom's gonna—" Trunks froze as a light blazed across the sky.

"Hey!" Goten noticed it as well. "A shooting star!"

"No it's not—I feel my mom's _ki_ in there!" Trunks took to the air and hovered there, waiting for Goten. "Your dad said we have to make sure she's okay—what if Vejata beat her up or something?"

"She did kill my dad..." Goten mumbled, shivering as he released the lizard and hovered up to meet Trunks, clutching at his stomach. "I hope it wasn't painful."

Trunks gave a wary eye to the arm that wasn't holding the dragon balls. "Me too, Goten. C'mon. Let's make sure my mom is okay."

"But you just said my mom would—"

"This is way more important," he asserted. "We have to call the dragon, remember?"

The other boy nodded vigorously at this, his chest swelling up proudly. "Yeah!" And they shot off, streaks in the sky following the ship's path to Capsule Corp.

...

As the vessel slowly powered down, Vejata turned on her heel, leaving Bulma leaning uncertainly against the counter. She glanced over the controls and then turned back to the woman. "You will proceed to the deepest, most private level of your residence," Vejata's voice was icy, but hiccups of emotion punctuated its monotone threat.

Bulma nodded, at a complete loss for what else to do.

"You will take the least populated path." She nodded again. "You will not speak until you've reached your destination." Another nod. "Let's go."

But as the ship's hatch drifted down, Vejata's stomach dropped.

"We heard you were coming back!" Trunks smirked, crossing his arms at the edge of the platform as it brushed against the ground.

"Give Trunks his mom back!" Goten added. "Or Dad said we have permission to kick your butt!"

Vejata's breathing grew ragged. It was too soon; she hadn't even made plans yet for what to...but no, these were children; they, surely, would spare her. "And if I give her back?"

Trunks shrugged nonchalantly. "Hm, we'll probably kick your butt anyway. After all," he grew serious, "we know what you did to Son!"

"You..." she blinked, a blanket of horror washing over her, "you do?"

"Yeah! You killed him!" Goten gathered himself into a fighting stance. "I hope you didn't hurt him too much! Or else we'll have to hurt you!"

Growls issued from Vejata's throat, and they became roars as she powered up. "If you're going to fight me either way, then let's stop wasting time," she hissed, watching Trunks as he handed his mother a small, lumpy satchel with a meaningful glance before turning his attention back to the queen. She knew that there would be no escaping them; on their own, they were barely stronger than she, if at all, but she remembered their powerful fused form. If Goku had already spoken with them, told them that he had died and that Vegeta was stranded, well—she had no hope of tricking them, or of distracting them from their woes.

No, she would have to fight them, and she would probably lose, but she wouldn't be a warrior if she didn't try.

...

They didn't fuse, but the two of them together were too much for her anyway. She hardly had time to worry about what she would wake up to—a revived Goku? His friends, livid and ready to do away with her? ...Hell?—before she sunk into unconsciousness beneath their young but skillful fists.

But she woke up to none of those things. She woke up to an enormous dragon, long body curling through the sky, and Bulma, Trunks, and Goten beneath it.


	10. 10

NOTE: I know, it's short, but you'll see why.  
One more chapter after this one. After that, you'll have to wait until the third and final installment in this "series" to see what happens... (Not that I know, myself. Well, not entirely, at least.)  
I hope you, er, enjoy it.

...

Vejata sat up abruptly, and was immediately hit by an onslaught of painful dizziness. As she became more alert, the dizziness abated. She dragged herself to her feet, rubbing the last of the confusion from her eyes, and tried to make sense of the scene before her.

There was a dragon—a towering dragon, quite different from the one she'd seen on Namek, but if the small glowing spheres beneath it were any indication, this one came from Earth's dragon balls. Then all she would have to do would be to shout her wish at it, right?—for unlike on Namek, no Namekian was present with the trio to chant their wish in the Namekian tongue; perhaps this dragon was different. She'd have to do it before the others could get in all their wishes—how many wishes were there? Was it the same as before—three? Her head pounded as she waded through the questions, but as she stepped forward to shout out something—anything to stop them from bringing back Goku, from saving Vegeta—

Strong green arms wrapped around her, lifting her off her feet. "What do you think you're doing?" Piccolo hissed in her ear.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Vejata breathed, watching carefully as Trunks and Bulma seemed to discuss something in the distance.

"A friend told me you'd be coming back," he rumbled threateningly, tightening his grip on her although she did not struggle. "And what you did to him. See," he leaned his head forward so that he could look her in the eye. "Around here I'm trusted to watch over my allies." Vejata felt that his words were supposed to sting, but they didn't—either because she felt no guilt in the first place, or because her mind was still so muddled; perhaps both. "I advise you not try anything dangerous." He dropped her back to the ground and stood back, crossing his arms and turning his attention to the dragon before them.

"Shenlong!" Bulma shouted up to it, "We want to bring Vegeta, who's stranded on a planet called New Vegeta, back to this spot on Earth!"

"It shall be done," Shenlong's eyes glowed, and as they dimmed again, Vegeta flashed into being beside his son. "There. Your wish is granted. What is your second wish?"

"V-Vegeta!" Bulma flung her arms around him.

"Dad, Vejata killed Son!" Trunks blurted. "He told us—"

"I know, boy," Vegeta muttered, planting one hand atop his son's head and resting the other over Bulma's shoulder. "He told me, too." His gaze met Vejata's, and an unrestrained growl burst from his throat. "_You_." Power erupting from him, he charged the woman, slamming his elbow into her sternum and forcing her to the ground. "You made your choice!" he screamed down at her. "Fight me and meet your fate!" he snarled, pressing his boot against her as his voice dropped to dangerous quiet. "For murdering Kakarotto, you will find no mercy."

He lifted his foot from Vejata, allowing her to stand. "Very well," she frowned, but seemed to remember something and burst into a mad grin before she powered up. She was shaking, and the prince could not tell if she was so fearful of death that her mind could handle it no longer, or if she had something up her sleeve and the shaking was her bottled laughter; he was inclined to believe the former, and felt this was affirmed when she settled at nearly the same strength as she'd had the last time he'd seen her power up to her fullest. "Let's go."

...

Vegeta pulled his arm back and landed another punch across Vejata's face, causing her to tumble gracelessly across the ground. She dug herself back up, and Vegeta realized that if there was one area in which her prowess matched his, it was her persistence; she ought have crumbled long ago—agonizingly long minutes ago—but, blood creeping from the corners of her mouth and more caking against her abraded back, scraped and scratched from her being driven against the dirt so many times, she stood time and time again.

She flung a _ki_ blast at Vegeta, but he sidestepped it and followed through with a swinging kick to her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She wheezed and clutched at her chest, eying Vegeta and waiting for him to make his next move while she was vulnerable. Instead, he knit his brows and peeled his gloves from his hands, waiting. When Vejata had recovered, he charged at her again, locking hands with her as he pressed his weight against her, and she against him. His power shot up, and he flung her into the air, firing a _ki_ blast at her as she fell, and then another, until her shoulder slammed into the ground.

Again, Vejata pulled herself up, though more slowly than any of the times before. She favored one leg, and sent the prince a weighty gaze, breathing heavily. A flicker of a smirk played across her features, but it disappeared beneath a wince of pain as she made an attempt to step forward. Vegeta noted the heavy flow of blood from one side of the leg she left free of her weight, and her apparent dizziness from losing so much so fast. With one gloveless hand, he snatched her shoulder, and with the other punched her in the gut, simultaneously releasing her to rise briefly through the air before hitting the ground again. She rested against her elbows, but struggled to stand this time, and the gold filtered away from her hair as it returned to its normal ebony.

Vejata finally made it to her feet, but was immediately struck back down by the prince, this time with a blow to the head. She stumbled to one side and collapsed against her hip, and reached up to her head to note with alarm its bleeding—almost as profuse as that of her leg. The queen could not stand this time—no—and so remained on her side, gritting her teeth, waiting—for this was the end; life was leaving her, too fast. With effort, she flipped onto her back to look up at Vegeta, who smirked over her.

Hands shaking with the pain of it, she reached up carefully to her neck, pulling something from around it—the medallion. With what her now deathly weak arm could manage, she grasped it and lay it as close to Vegeta as she could, beside his right boot. "Congratulations," she smirked wryly, and then coughed, blood gurgling from her mouth and creeping down her cheek until it pooled in her ear, "King Vegeta."

Her last breaths were fear and loathing, were sorrow and exhilaration; were, finally, disgust and hate as she felt her muscles relax and the rage that had pumped through her veins pool beneath her. As she plummeted into the dark of death, she heard the medallion snap beneath Vegeta's foot—and with it, herself.


	11. 11

"What is your second wish?" Shenlong boomed into the silence, and Vegeta turned around to face the others, removing his foot from the shattered medallion and kicking some shards of it into the dust, now muddy with blood.

"We are bringing Kakarotto back," Vegeta spoke loudly, his voice almost as booming as the dragon's even though he was not addressing it.

"Not with these dragon balls," Bulma spoke quietly, eyes still affixed to the body on the ground. Never had she witnessed such a violent death; but she had stood in silence, not fifty feet away, as Vegeta beat the mirror image of himself into the ground time and time again with a viciousness she had not witnessed from him in years. Vejata had resisted—with all she had in her, Bulma suspected—but the prince, so much stronger, brushed off most of her blows with little more than a snarl.

Vejata's final words had been too muted to hear from such a distance, but she had placed the medallion beside Vegeta as her body convulsed with pain, and then Vegeta had crushed it. The woman had stilled, head rolling to the side, eyes gracelessly half-open as the blood that had gathered in her ear and mouth dribbled out onto the ground. Bulma shivered and remembered the queen's gentle touch not an hour before, closeness and racing heart, but shook it off and rewound further to her discovery that Goku was dead, to her own nearly-threatened life, to the hijacking of the ship, and steeled her gaze as she turned her attention to Vegeta.

"Why's that?" Vegeta growled.

"After Son died fighting Raditsu," she explained, trying to keep a level head and averting her eyes from the slowly cooling battlefield, "when you first came to Earth, Shenlong brought Son back to life." It had been so long ago—to think that she hadn't known Vegeta then; he was another monster, a purveyor of genocide, a monumental threat. But after over a decade, she was sure he had found peace—well, until the crises stirred up by Vejata. "And Shenlong won't grant the same wish twice."

The dragon snorted in response to this, as if daring them to challenge him on this point.

"We need to go to New Namek to bring Son back," Bulma elaborated.

"I'm sure Shenlong can do that for you," Piccolo suggested, stepping forward after glancing briefly at the queen's body. "Since none of us can teleport. Otherwise, of course, you will need to get back into that ship," he nodded toward it, far off to the side and largely undamaged by the battle.

"We will use the wish," Vegeta demanded, and as he mentally composed its phrasing he glanced toward his son for the first time since the beginning of the battle. The boy had moved since then—was more distantly placed, nearer the dragon balls. Goten was there, too, beside him, illuminated by the glow of the spheres and leaving only patches of light to land upon Trunks' form—dark and shadowy in the night, and even more so beneath the storm clouds Shenlong brought. Goten lay one hand on Trunks' shoulder, speaking quietly as his head tilted down. Trunks nodded, sniffling and trying to ignore the moisture that gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Piccolo followed Vegeta's gaze toward the two, but unlike the Saiyajin, he could hear the words they spoke.

"Trunks..." Goten muttered, patting his friend's shoulder. "It's...it's okay..."

"No it's not," he whispered, madly rubbing at his eyes. "I...I can't believe..." Trunks shivered and glanced back toward Vejata's body, and then to his father. "He's just like them."

"He's not," Goten protested urgently, leaning forward to look the other boy in the eye, and the light from the dragon balls burst onto Trunks' face, revealing the red around his eyes and the watery glaze over them. "This was different," but his voice quivered, "R-right?" He bit his lip, having doubted his words from the start.

"It could have been quick," Trunks rasped, lifting his right arm, the one that had been torn away from him in his dying moment not so long ago, into the light and pressing his eyes shut. Goten took it gently in his hands and pulled it to himself, hoping the contact would calm his friend. "But it wasn't. He didn't...he..."

"I know," Goten murmured, and he pulled Trunks closer.

Piccolo turned his attention back to Vegeta, who seemed to have caught on to the subject of their conversation and turned away from the boys, hiding a wounded expression. The Namekian had met his own violent death by the hands of one of the copies of Vegeta, much like Trunks and Goten. From Goku's word he knew Vejata's treatment of the strongest Saiyajin ever to live had been vicious in a different way. The prince-now-king—no, prince, for had he not destroyed his peoples' way of marking their ruler?—had his own share of killings beneath his belt, surely a portion of them as unnecessarily drawn out and cruel as this one. The Saiyajin's son, perhaps, had not known this, and with a shiver Piccolo acknowledged the boy's insight. Perhaps he had a reason to be so afraid, so saddened, so disgusted. Perhaps there was some undoable evil in the prince.

The Namekian tread up to the boys, and nodded to each of them knowingly. "Are you coming to New Namek to wish Son back with us?" They glanced at each other and nodded. "Shenlong!" Piccolo shouted up to the dragon, "Take Vegeta, Bulma, Goten, Trunks and I to New Namek!"

"About time," the dragon seemed to grumble. "It shall be done." His eyes glowed, and they were gone.

...

"Sorry," Piccolo gave Muuri an apologetic shrug as another Namekian carried out the last of the dragon balls. "I know it wasn't so long ago that my friends and I were wished back, but Son Goku was killed again."

Muuri nodded. "I hope there are no such pressing evils in the universe as last time?"

"No," Piccolo shook his head.

"We are glad to help you revive Goku. He's done so much for us, after all." He turned to the spheres, and at his command Porunga burst forth.

"What is your wish?" his voice echoed, and Muuri shouted up to the dragon in the Namekian tongue. "Son Goku? Again, eh?" Porunga seemed to chuckle, deep voice causing the ground to rumble beneath him as he did. "All right. Easy enough. It is done."

"Bring him here," Vegeta told Muuri, who repeated the wish to the dragon.

"Nonsense," Porunga seemed to grin. "He is on his way."

Indeed, Goku appeared a split-second later, and lowered his fingers from his forehead. "Thanks, guys," he spoke more quietly than any had been expecting of him.

Vegeta stepped forward, and, closing his eyes, held one hand out to Goku. "My words were foolish," he said simply, and Goku grabbed at his still-ungloved hand, tightening his grip on it and letting go quickly.

"It's all right, Vegeta," he smiled slightly. "Everything's better now." Goku glanced over the group, nodding to each of his friends. "Where's Vejata?"

"Dead," the prince answered quietly.

"R...really?" Goku blinked, and Vegeta noted the unbearable neutrality of his features.

"I killed her, no more than half an hour ago," he answered, equally neutrally. "For what she did to you. And to me."

"I..." the Saiyajin glanced over at his other friends; Bulma, Trunks, and Goten seemed confused, and he realized that both Piccolo and Vegeta must have kept quiet about the details, or perhaps had no chance to pass them on. "Thanks for...for the thought."

"We still have two more wishes," Bulma spoke quietly, unable to decipher Goku's uncharacteristic dispassion. "We can bring her back..."

Goku glanced up to Porunga, raising his eyebrows, and then turned his attention first to Vegeta, and then to Piccolo, Bulma, Trunks, and Goten. "I..." he started, and felt his throat dry up uncomfortably. "I, er...guys...it's a long story...I..."

"It's okay," Bulma answered softly. Piccolo nodded, and Trunks' eyes were downcast; Goten glanced at his friend in concern. Bulma bit her lip. "Really, Son."

He turned his eyes to Vegeta, who returned a solemn stare of his own, nodding. "You know my feelings on the matter, I think." Goku noted the flakes of blood that had caked beneath Vegeta's fingernails, his stained palms.

Exhaling resolutely, Goku turned to Muuri. "We don't need the other two wishes. Thanks, friend."

Muuri nodded. "Have a safe journey home."

Goku nodded to the others, who gathered around him and laid their hands against his shoulders and arms. He raised two fingers to his forehead. "Will do."

And they were gone.

...

END

...

NOTE: You can find the sequel to this story, "Black and White," via my profile page. I hope you will read the last installment of this series!


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